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THE 



REPUBLICAN COURT; 



OR, 



AMERICAN SOCIETY IN THE DAYS OF WASHINGTON. 



BY RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. 



A IfEW EDITION, WITH THE AUTHOR'S LAST ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS. 



litl] %Mt^-Mt '$axtxmh 0f lislinpisli;^^ Mmuw, 



ENGRAVED PROM ORIGINAL PICTURES BY WOLLASTON, COPLEY, GAINSBOROUGH, STUART 
PEALE, TRUMBULL, PINE, MALBONE, AND OTHER CONTEMPORARY PAINTERS. 



NEW YORK: 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 443 AND 445 BROADWAY 

LONDON: 16 LITTLE BRITAIN. 

1867. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United f^^tates for tl^c Southern I>i8trict 

of New Yui^. 






TO 

JOHN W. FEANCIS, M.D., LL. D. 



My Deae Dk. Francis : 

The following work was planned and its materials partially collected 
several years ago ; but the feehle and r -carious condition of my health 
presented its ox»<;ution until the present i^eason ; and now it has been 
wiitten in such haste and so rapidly prini.^ ; — each day's product of the 
pen l)eing" returned to me in prOof -sheets the following evening — that I 
hfivf; had little opporturdi^y for revisjnn or my thought of the graces of 
composition. From appearances of carelessness, however, you will readily 
perceive that one chapter, that entitled " The Convention," is exempt. 
For this I am indebted to one of the most justly eminent of contemporary 
scholars and men of letters, who kindly consented to assist me, after the 
book was- announced, and when there was very little prospect of my having 
sufficient strength to furnish any considerable portion of its contents. For 
the rest I alone am responsible ; and while regretting that it has so little 
merit of a purely literary character, I can claim for it the far more impor- 
tant excellence of a most exact adherence to truth. The subjects treated 
undoubtedly admitted of easy and striking embellishments of fancy, but it 
seemed to me that the volume would be, upon the whole, far more accepta- 
ble if in its preparation I confined myself in even the most trivial details 
of narrative, delineation, and suggestion, to what was clearly warranted by 
unquestionable authorities. And of such authorities, fortunately, I have 
had an ample collection. Besides those which are printed and accessible to 
every student of American history, I have had in my possession more than 
two thousand unpubhshed private letters, of which some three hundred were 



iv TO DR. FRANCIS. 

by Washington, and great numbers by Mrs. Adams, Mrs, Jay, Mrs. Cusb- 
ing, Mrs. Pinckney, the families of Wolcott, McKean, Livingston, Boudi- 
not, Willing, and others who participated in the life I have attempted to 
describe. 

It is not so much from a consideration of our long continued friend- 
ship, my dear Dr. Francis, that I inscribe tc you these pages, as from a 
desire suitably to recognize my indebtedness to those inexhaustible re- 
sources of minute and curious knowledge with which you are wont to 
instruct and delight the attached circle which gathers about you, in the 
intervals of that severe professional labor from which, after half a century 
from its commencement, the public, for your eminent abiKties, refuses to 
relieve you. You have retained to the age of nearly three-score years and 
ten all your native physical and intellectual vigor, a spirit as inquisitive, 
a memory as retentive, and a temper as genial and indomitable, as you 
possessed when the fathers and grandfathers of the new generation were 
your partners in youthful energy, and the heroes of the first and best age 
of the republic still lived to instruct the world from their experience. 
May God long preserve to you these qualities, and, to your friends, your 
wise conversation and the assurance of your unfailing happiness. 

K. "W. GRISWOLD. 

No. 22 West Twentt-Thikd Street, 
New-Yoek, October 20, 1854. 



CONTENTS. 



«♦« 



PAOH 

PEACE 1 

IKE CGKYENTTON .37 

TTTk YE,VT' '^^ ^'SPEKcE .... .77 

THE TKDJUl'HAi. PEOtfjftESfe . . . . • .113 

THE INAUGITEATION ......... 137 

NEW YORK METROPOLITAN 147^ 

THE EASTERN TOUR 183 

THE SEASON OF EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY . . . .203 

REMOVAL OF THE GOVERNMENT 231 

SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA 253 

THE SOUTHERN TOUR . .329 

DISCONTENT AND SEDITION . .341 

LIFE IN THE CAPITAL 365 

THE CONCLUSION 413 

APPENDIX 427 

INDEX 457 



PORTRAITS. 



PAINTED BY 



PAGB 

MRS. WASHINGTON J- woolaston 



« THOS. LINDALL WINTHROP gilbert sttjakt 10 ^. 

" WILLIAM DUER 

•« ALEXANDER HAMILTON R. earle S5 

" JAMES MADISON gilbeet stoart 69 ■ 

« WILLIAM S. SMITH john singleton copley 91 ^. 

" JOHN JAY ROBERT EDGE PINE 9 ' 

no ^ 

" RUFUS KING JOHN trumbbll ^^^ 

" R^jXiPll IZARD THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH 139 •* 



JAMES BEEKMAN. 



155 ^ 



" JOHN ADAMS c. schessele 169 ^ 

" HARRISON GRAY OTIS edward g. malbone. 183 

" RICHARD CATON....^. .robert edge pine 209 ** 

• THOMAS M. RANDOLPH thomas sully 

« HENRY PHILLIPS 



219 
231 



WALTER STEWART c. w. peale 253 



" WILLIAM BINGHAM gilbert stuart. , 

" WILLIAM JACKSON gilbert stuart. 



ROBERT MORRIS c. \7. peale. 



294^ 
302* 
308 - 



" THEODORE SEDGWICK w. stuart 326 -* 

» EDMUND C. GENET .• • S5l-» 

'« LAWRENCE LEWIS gilbert stuart. 369 - 

THE MARCHIONESS D'YRUJO gilbert stuart 388* 

MRS. CHAUNCEY GOODRICH 400 

" CHARLES CARROLL. John teumbull 411 



PEACE. 
I. 

At lengtli tlie struggle was ended. After eight years of san- 
guinary and doubtful war, came peace, at last, witli independence, 
acknowledgecT by tbe cMef masters of tbe world. On tlie nine- 
teentK of AprS, 1775, tLt- first blood- oi' ;Jution reddened 

tlie field of Lexirij,^< 'P. : un the nineteentii 1783, proclama- 

uoii was made of the treaty signed at Pari«. 'n the second of 
the following November, the veteran and victorious soldiers were 
disbanded, by order of Congress, their illustrious Chief having the 
previous day taken his final leave of them, invoking from their 
grateful country and the God of battles " ample justice here and 
the choicest of Heaven's favors both here and hereafter." 

Eight years of desolating war, though crowned with a triumph 
which only the most universal and profound patriotism, guided by 
wisdom almost superhuman, could have accomplished, had brought 
m theii' train so much suffering ; to so many housejiolds mourning 
for fathers, brothers, husbands, sons ; and with their conclusion a 
poverty so general and hopeless, that there was little of that tm-- ^ 
bulence of joy which a more sudden and less costly victory wouldng 
have excited. He who, scarred and poorly clothed, laid aside h^^ ^° 



2 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

arms, and turning toward tlie liaunts of his cliildliood saw fielda 
wMcli had blossomed as the rose half obscured with a new wilder- 
ness, with perhaps a charred and silent ruin in the midst, must 
have felt keenly what seems now to be so commonly forgotten, 
the fearful price which had been paid for liberty. But then, lib- 
erty was secured, and, thankful for this, nearly every one deter- 
mined to carry content with his remaining energies into a labo- 
rious private life. 

On the eighteenth of November the British army retii'ed from 
New York, and the American troops, still in service, entered from 
an opposite dii^ection, General Washington and Governor Clinton 
riding at the head of the procession. These events caused, of 
course, a general joy in the city, and they were celebrated with the 
utmost enthusiasm. Governor Clinton gave public dinners", first 
to Washington and his companions in arms, and soon after to the 
French ambassador, tne Chevalier de la Luzerne. At the last 
there were present more than one hundred gentlemen, besides the 
Commander-in-Chief, with his general officers in the city, and the 
principal persons connected with the state government; and in 
the evening followed the most splendid display of fii-eworks, from 
the Bowling Green, that had ever been seen in America. The next 
day, the fourth of December, occurred the most sadly impressive 
scene in Washington's history. At noon the officers of the army 
assembled, according to his request, for a final parting, at Frauncis's 
tavern, in Broad street. We have a touching description of the 
scene, by an eye-witness. The Chief, with his customary punctual- 
ity, entered the room where his brave associates for so many years 
were assembled. His emotions were too strong to be concealed. 
Fillino- a glass, he turned to^them ^nd said : " With a heart full of 
■"ove and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly, 
ish t«hat your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as 



PEACE. 3 

your former ones have been glorious and lionorable." Having 
drank, lie added, " I cannot come to eacli of you to take my leave, 
but skaU be obliged if each of you will come and take me by tke 
hand." General Knox, being nearest, turned to Mm. Incapable 
of utterance, tke Chief embraced kim, witk tears, and in tke same 
affectionate manner ke bade farewell to eack succeeding officer. 
In every eye was tke tear of dignified sensibikty, and not a word 
interrupted tke eloquent silence. Leaving tke room, Tkatcker 
continues, ke j)assed tkrougk tke corps of Ligkt Infantry, and 
walked to Wkitekall, wkere a barge awaited to convey kim to 
Paulus Hook. Tke wkole company followed in mute and solemn 
procession, tkeir melanckoly countenances displaying emotions 
wkick cannot be described. Having entered tke barge, ke turned 
to kis friends, wko stood uncovered upon tke skore, and waving 
kis kat, bade tkem a silent adieu.* • 

* There are some allusions to these scenes ia an interesting letter, addressed to a friend at 
Albany, by one of the officers -who shared the last march of the revolutionary army. " I sup- 
pose," says the writer, " JIi-s. Denison told you the ne^vs, up to the time she left. You know all 
about our marching in. There has been nothing done since but rejoice, so far as general appear- 
ances go, and for my part, considering that we are finally free and independent, why, good God I 
what should I care for the looks of the old house — perfectly sacked, and in such a condition that 
if the little paper in my exchequer were turned into specie, I should not be able to give it the com- 
plexion it had when we quitted it. After all, since Henry was killed, it 's of no great consequence 
what we have suffered in property. K he were with me and the girls, why, we could make thing 
answer, in some way. Do n't suspect I think of placing these private troubles against the public 
good we have, and which will make up a thousand times to our children all we have lost ana 
endured. Every body now sees what a great character General Washington is. I have heard 
a good deal about the leave taking at Black Sam's. Happy as was the occasion, and prayed 
for as it was by him and all patriots, when he might feel that there was not an enemy in 
Ajnerica, it brought with it its sorrows, and I could hardly speak when I turned from taking my 
last look of him. It was extremely affecting. I do not think there ever were so many broken 
hearts in New York as there were that night. That cursed captain carried off Johnoon's girl, after 
^••^ He never would think of such a thing you know. He feels down, down. I am suspicious he 
, -mil never be the man he was. The Cliief was told the story by General Knox, and he said he 
sincerely sympathized with Johnson. That is lilce him. He was always touched by every body's 
misforttmes. I saw him at the French minister's dinner. He looked considerably worn out, but v^ 
happy, though every now and then he seemed to be thinking what all this had cost, and regretting 
that one friend or another who had stood the fire had not lived to see the glorious end. As to 



4 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

On Friday, the seventeentli of December, lie amved at An- 
napolis. Two years before, on bis way nortbward, be bad been 
received bere witb every bonor in tbe gift of tbe city, and bad 
deligbted tbe people by bis amenity, at a public dinner, and at a 
ball graced by tbe beauty and finest intelligence of tbe state. 
He was now met several miles from tbe capital, by Generals 
Gates and Smallwood, and a large concourse of distinguisbed citi- 
zens, wbo escorted bim to bis botel, amid discbarges of cannon, 
tbe display of banners, and every sign of popular respect and ad- 
mii'ation. On Monday, a dinner was given to bim by tbe 
members of Congress, at wbicb more tban two bundred persons 
were present, and in tbe evening be attended a gi'and ball,* in tbe 
state-bouse, wbicb was brilliantly illuminated. In reply to a 
speecb by tbe Mayor, just before be retired, be remarked, " If my 
conduct bas merited tbe confidence of my fellow-citizens, and bas 
been instrumental in obtaining for my country tbe blessings of 
p^ace and freedom, I owe it to tbat Supreme Being wbo guides 
tbe bearts of all, wbo bas so signally interposed bis aid in every 
stage of tbe contest, and wbo bas graciously been pleased to be- 

JohnsoD, he is not alone, by a vast many. These scamps could not conquer the men of this 
countiy, but every where they have taken the women, almost without a trial, damn them ! 
But as you say, it 's the girls that ought to be damned, who could not hold out against a spruce 
uniform, nor remember a brave heart. Well, it's their weakness. But I'm in the wrong if one 
of tliem who has taken a British husband does not rue it, for which, certainly, I shall not care." 

The unhappy influence of " spruce uniforms," so feelingly alluded to, was no mere fancy, 
and the public interests were not unfrequently made to suffer as deeply as the feelings of indi- 
viduals. In August, 1779, Governor Livingston wrote to his daughter Catherine, " The com- 
plaisance with which we treat the British prisoners, considering how they treat us when in 
captivity, of which you justly complain, is what the Congress can never answer to their con- 
stituents, however palliated with the specious name of humanity. It is thus that we shall be at 
last humanized out of our liberties. ... I know there are a number of flirts in Philadelphia, 
equally famed for their want of modesty and their want of patriotism, who will triumph in our 
over-complaisance to the red coat prisoners lately arrived in that metropolis. I hope none of my 
connections will imitate them, in the dress of their heads, or in the Tory feelings of their hearts." 

* The ball was opened by General Washington and Mrs. James Macubbin, one of the most 
beantiful women of the time. 



^ . PEACE. 5 

stow on me tlie greatest of earthly rewards, tlie approbation and 
affection of a free people." 

One more scene, among the most sublime in human history, and 
not less impressive than that of his separation from his companions 
in arms, awaited him before his retii'ement to private life. On the 
twenty-thii'd of December, according to a previous order, he was 
admitted to a public audience by the Congress, and soon after he 
was seated, the President, General Mifflin, informed him that that 
body was prepared to receive his communications. In a brief and 
appropriate speech he offered his congratulations on the termina- 
tion of the war, and having alluded to his object in appearing thus 
in that presence — that he might resign into the hands of Congress 
the trust committed to him, and claim the indulgence of retiring 
from the public service — ^he concluded : " I consider it an indispen- 
sable duty to close this last act of my official life, by commending 
the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty 
God, and those who have the superintendence of them to his holy 
keeping. Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire 
from the theatre of action, and bidding an affectionate farewell t6 
this august hody, under whose orders I have so loi*g acted, I here 
offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of 
pubhc life." He then advanced and dehvered into the hands of the 
President his commission, with a copy of his address, and when he 
had resumed his place. General Mifflin replied, re^dewing in a few 
words the great career thus brought to a close, and saying in 
conclusion, " The glory of your virtues will not terminate with 
your military command : it will continue to animate the remotest 
ages. . . . We join' with you in commending the interests of om' 
country to Almighty God, heseeching Him to dispose the hearts 
and minds of its citizens to improve the opportunity afforded them 
of becoming a happy and respectable nation. And for you, we 



6 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

addi'ess to Him our warmest prayers, tliat a life so beloved 
may be fostered with all Ms care, tliat your days may be as 
happy as they have been illustrious, and that he will finally give 
you that reward which this world cannot bestow." The editor of 
the Maryland Gazette, a journal which in this period was printed 
at Annapolis, remarks, after describing these affecting scenes : " Few 
tragedies ever drew so many tears, from so many beautiful eyes, 
as the moving manner in which his Excellency took his final leave 
of Congress. The next morning he set out for Virginia, accom- 
panied, as far as South River, by Governor Paca, with the warmest 
wishes of the city for his repose, health, and happiness. Long may 
he live to enjoy them ! " He arrived at his home the same even- 
ing, having been absent more than eight years and a half, during 
which time he had never been at his own house, except inciden- 
tally while on his way with Count Rochambeau to Yorktown, 
and in returning from that expedition. Here, for a while, we 
leave him, surrounded by his family, receiving every day some 
new homage from his grateful countrymen and from the noblest 
men of other nations, and occupied with those rural pursuits for 
which he had longed so many years, that we may take a brief sur- 
vey of the social condition of our principal cities after the termina- 
tion of the revolution. 

II. 

TuRiSTNG from the most credulous study of the half fabulous 
annals of ancient nations, to the history of our own country, for 
the period which is embraced in the memories of many who are 
still living, our reason falters iit astonishment; we instinctively 
regard with doubt and disbehef the unparalleled advance in popu- 
lation, wealth, power, and all the elements of gi'eatness, of those 
feeble and exhausted colonies, which in 1*783 were acknowledged 



PEACE. 7 

to be independent states, and wliicli now constitute one of tlie first 
of the leading sovereignties of tlie world. Since Washington 
resigned his sword, at Annapolis, onr three millions of people 
have increased to thirty millions, and New York, with its suburbs, 
which since some of her present citizens arrived at the age of man- 
hood had but thirty thousand inhabitants, is now the third city in 
Christendom, likely at the next decennial census to have rank 
nearest to London, and at no distant period to take from even that 
great capital her long enjoyed supremacy, in numbers, riches, and 
magnificence. Boston contained at the close of the war about thir- 
teen thousand inhabitants, in IT 8 6 fourteen thousand and two hun- 
dred, and in 1789 eighteen thousand ; the population of New York 
had increased, when the federal government was inaugm'ated, to 
thirty-three thousand, of whom two thousand and three hundred 
were slaves ; and that of Philadelphia to forty-two thousand, of 
whom less than three hundred were slaves, and these probably for 
the most part owned by temporary residents. 

In each of these three cities, and indeed throughout the colonies, 
there was at the commencement of the war as much refinement of 
manners, with as generous a culture of the heart and the under- 
standing, as could be found perhaps in any foreign society. Many 
of the young men who were then coming forward had been edu- 
cated at Eton, Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh ; and om' own 
colleges of Harvard, Yale, Nassau Hall, and "William and Mary, 
and King's College in New York, were far more respectable for the 
character and learning of their professors, the judicious thorough- 
ness of their courses of instruction, and the gentlemanly discipline 
maintained in them, than is commonly supposed. Schools for young 
women also were very numerous, and some of them were widely 
known and most hberaUy supported. The most celebrated of these 
was the Moravian establishment at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, 



8 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

where, in nun-like seclusion, were educated a large proportion of 
the belles who gave the fashionable circles of New York and 
Philadelphia their inspiration duiing the last twenty years of the 
century.* 

In Boston there was undoubtedly more real respectability than 
in any other town of its population in the British empire. It was 
the home of the families of Winthrop, variously illustrious from 
the foundation of the colony, and of Gushing, Quincy, Bowdoin, 
Dana, Prescott, and others of hereditary distinction ; and here 
lived the " silver tongued orator " Samuel Cooper, and Samuel 
Adams, John Adams, Joseph Warren, James Otis, John Hancock, 
John Singleton Copley, and a great number besides who became 
honorably conspicuous in history. Except in letters, in which 
the names of Dana and Prescott have reappeared with additional 
splendors, Boston has never since, notwithstanding her growth 
in numbers, magnificence, and means and displays of refinement, 
presented a more remarkable array of dignified character and 
eminent abilities. 

We have some ghmpses of the social life of Boston at the close 
of the war, in the entertaining memoirs of the Marquis de Chas- 
tellux, who went the round of fashionable gayeties here in 1782. He 
noticed the prevalence in society of a certain "ton of ease and 
freedom," but thought the gentlemen awkward dancers, particularly 
in the minuet. The women were well-dressed, but with less elegance 
than those of Philadelphia. The assembly room was superb, in a 
good style of architecture, well decorated and well lighted — much 
superior to that of the Philadelj^hia City Tavern. He di*auk tea 

* " I have seen a remarkable institution for the education of young ladies, at Bethlehem. About 
one hundred and twenty of them live together under the same roof; they sleep all together, in 
the same garret ; I saw one hundred and twenty beds, in two long rows, in the same room ; the 
beds and bedclothes were all of excellent quality, and extremely neat. How should you like to 
live in such a nunnery?" — John Adams, to his daughter, March 17, 1777. 



PEACE. 9 

at Mr. Bowdoin's and was tliere witli a supper party of twenty of 
tlie select people of tlie city * Tlje next day, with the Marquis de 
Vaudreuil, lie dined at Mr. Breck's, where, among some thirty per- 
sons, he encountered Mi's. Tudor, who knew French perfectly, and 
was possessed of understanding, grace, and delicacy, and Mrs. Mor- 
ton, who, besides speaking French, was a poetess of no mean cele- 
brity. Soon after he attended the Tuesday evening Club, which 
is still in existence, at the end of more than a century from its 
commencement ; and calling again at Mr. Bowdoin's, his admiration 
was kindled at the sight of that gentleman's beautiful grand-daugh- 
ter, the eldest child of Lady Temple, " an angel in the disguise of 

* Francis Jean, Marquis de Cliastellux, Ktterateur, philosopher, and soldier, was born of a 
noble family in Paris in 1734. He was elected in 1776 one of the forty members of the French 
Academy, and in 1780 came to America, with the rank of Major General, xmder the Count de 
Rochambeau, and remained here between two and three years. He published Be la Felicite 
Publique, 1772; Voyage dans rAmerique Septentrionale, dans Ics annes 1780-81-82, in two vol- 
umes, which were severely criticised by Brissot de Warville ; JEssai sur V Union de la Poesie et de 
la Musique ; Discours sur Ics AvantagesctDesavantagcs qui resultant pour V Europe de la Decouvcrte 
de rAmerique ; Discours en Vers addresses aux officiers et soldats des differenfes Armecs Americaincs, 
traduit de 1' Anglais de David Humphreys, and some other works, besides articles in the Ency- 
clopedie, &c. He died in 1788. It was but a short time before his death that the Marquis was 
married, and he wrote to Washington advising him of the happy event. The Chief answered in 
one of the fe\7 examples of written pleasantry we have from him. "I was," he says, "not less 
delighted than surprised to meet the plain American words, ' my wife.' A wife I well, my dear 
Marquis, I can scarcely refrain from smiling to find you caught at last. I saw by the eulogium 
you often made on the happiness of domestic life in America that you had swallowed the bait, 
and that you would as surely be taken, one day or another, as that you were a philosopher and 
a soldier. So your day has at length come. I am glad of it, with all my heart. It is quite good 
enough for you. Now you are well served for coming to fight in favor of the American rebels, 
all the way across the Atlantic ocean, by catching that terrible contagion, domestic felicity, 
which, like the small pox or the plague, a man can have only once in his life, becaiase it com- 
monly lasts him, (at least with us in America : I know not how you manage these matters in 
France,) for his whole lifetime. And yet, after all, the worst wish which I can find it in my 
heart to make against Madame de ChasteUux and yourself is, that you may neither of you ever 
get the better of this same domestic felicity, during the entire course of your mortal existence. 
If so wonderful an event should have occasioned me, my dear Marquis, to write in a strange 
style, you will understand me as clearly as if I had said, what in plain English is the simple 
truth, ' Do me the justice to believe that I take a heartfelt interest in whatever concerns your 
happiness.' And, in this view, I sincerely congratulate you on your auspicious matrimom'al 
connection." 



10 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

a young girl." "'^ M. de Chastellux discovered tliat the Americans 
had the bad habit of eating too frequently, and they made him 
play at whist, with English cards, much handsomer and dearer than 
were used in Paris, and marked their points -with, lo^ds d^ors. The 
stakes however were easy to settle, notwithstanding the addiction of 
the people of this country to gambling, for the company was still 
faithful to that voluntary law established in society which prohi- 
bited playing for money during the war. 

M. Jean Pierre Brissot de Warville followed in a few years, and 
was not less pleased than the Marquis de Chastellux with the amia- 
ble, affable, hospitable people of Boston. Were he to paint all the 
estimable characters he met in that charming town, he tells us, his 
portraits would never be finished. The Bostonians were even then 
somewhat too philosophical in their religion, but they united sim- 
plicity of morals with that French politeness and delicacy of man- 
ners which rendered virtue most agreeable. They were true friends, 
tender husbands, almost idolatrous parents, and kind masters. The 
grim young republican heard in some houses the j^iano forte, and ff 
exclaimed, " God grant that the Boston women may never, like those j) J 
of Paris, acquire la maladie of perfection in the art of music, which y 
is not to be attained but at the expense of the domestic vii-tues ! " 
The " demoiselles here had the liberty enjoyed in Geneva, when 
morals were there, in the time of the republic ; and they did not 
abuse it. Their frank and tender hearts had nothmg to fear from 
the perfidy of men: the vows of love were believed;" and wives, 
to sum up all, were " occupied in rendering theii* husbands happy." 

* Miss Temple, afterward Mrs. Winthrop, and the mother of the present Mr. Robert C. Win- 
throp, Avas brought up in Governor Bowdoin's family, and adopted by him as a daughter. With 
him she lived during the -whole period of the revolution, meeting at his house Franklin and La- 
fayette, and all the French and American officers of distinction who visited the city. Lafayette 
was a great admirer of hers, and called often to see her during his last visit to America. She 
was long the reigning belle of Boston. 







>,....,/..._/.« 



PEACE. 11 



III. 



Philadelphia, it will be perceived, was stiU the largest town 
in tlie country. By general consent it had been regarded as the 
metropolis, except while occupied by the enemy, duiing the war. 
The Chevalier de Beaujour, who described it a few years later, 
denies its claim to be considered the most beautiful city in the 
world, but admits that it was the most remarkable for the regu- 
larity of its streets, and the cleanHness of its houses. " It is cut," 
he says, " like a chess-board, at right angles. AU the streets and 
houses resemble each other, and nothing is so gloomy as this 
uniformity, unless it be the sadness of the inhabitants, the greater 
part of whom are of Quaker or Pmitan descent." 

Society here, in the middle of the last century, was divided into 
two classes of families, recognized as of family rank, though family 
rank of very different kinds. One comprised the Logans, Shippens, 
Pembertons, Morrises, Wains, Lloyds (of the ancient house of Do- 
lobran), Hills, "Wynnes, Moores, Benezets, JSTorrises, Peningtons, and 
a few others of Quaker antiquity, highly esteemed even beyond the 
circle of their sect for substantial quahties and comfortable regard 
for domestic ease, but bound, of course, by the essence of their faith, 
to an abnegation of nearly every thing that belonged to the spirit 
of the cavalier, and of every thing which illustrates itself in the 
tastes or shows of life. This was the elder part of the provincial aris- 
tocracy. Some of them or theu' ancestors had come on " The Wel- 
come," along with William Penn himself, and whatever had been 
their rank at home — in many cases it was of unquestionable respect- 
abiUty — they formed in Pennsylvania sort of " Battle Abbey EoU," 
and some time before the death of renn had obtained a peacea- 
ble possession from which the advent of a class more hberal, educated, 
and accomplished, has never dispossessed their names. 



12 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

The deatli of tlie founder of Pennsylvania in IT 18, the increas- 
ing wealth and civilization of the colony, and the return of the 
proprietory descendants to the estahlished church, brought from 
England at a later date, and generally about the middle of the last 
century, a class of entirely different families. For the most part 
they were in some connection with the proprietary offices, now 
grown important. They were with few exceptions of the Church 
of England, and of liberal education — merchants trained in the 
honorable principles of a large commerce, lawyers who had pursued 
their studies at the Temple — and it may be suj^posed were recog- 
nized at home as people of liberal culture, of social refinement, and 
" of orthodox principles, both in church and state." Such doubt- 
less were the Aliens, Ashetons (though this family came earlier), 
Lawrences, Chews, Tilghmans, Plumsteds, Hamiltons, Hackleys, 
lughses, Simses, Francises, Masters, Bonds, Peterses, Conynghams 
of Conyngham, Chancellors, and Maddoxes. These last two, of 
which the second is extinct in the male line, came in the beginning 
of the century. Certain of the Shippens, likewise, originally of 
Quaker affinities, had now in the third generation been so educated 
in England as to belong more to this class than to the former one, 
and several families from Scotland, who had arrived in Philadelphia 
about 1Y40 to 1745, are also to be reckoned in it. These all constitut- 
ed a secondary formation in the colonial stratification. At a later 
date the men of the revolution, Bradford, McKean, Biddle, Mifflm, 
and many, of rank, from other states, such as Major Pierce Butler, 
Mr. Boudiuot, Mr. Heed, and some others, whom public affairs 
brought permanently to Philadelphia, were a third class, which 
comprised a few and only ^few of both the former classes : the 
Quakers having been geneimly excluded as averse to war of any 
kind, and many of the provincial gentry as averse to a war with 
Great Britain. The small number of the older classes, principally of 



PEACE. 



13 



the second, wlio supported tlie war, attracted to tlieir new character 
more tlian the natural influence of thek former colonial standing * 



IV. 

EiEQSTEisrT among the Enghsh families of this second class were 
the Willings, who for strong social connections and great weight 

* Tlie following document, never before published in a form likely to be preserved, is curious 
and interesting. It is a copy of the original subscription list to the first city dancing assembly, 
held in Philadelphia in the year 1Y48. It contains a record of most of the persons then in 
Philadelphia belonging to the second class of which I have spoken. Some of the names, such 
as those of Kidd, Mackimen, Sober, Wiseheart, Polyceen, Boyle, Godons, Cottenham, Maland, 
and Cozzens, are, I believe, hardly now known even to antiquaries in that city. They were 
probably strangers or temporary residents. A few, like those of Bond, Stedmian, Franks, Inglis, 
and Levy, are now represented in female lines. But notwithstanding the change often made upon 
the structure and chances of our society by our transatlantic brethren, it will be obvious that 
now, at the distance of one hundred and twenty-five years from its date — a^evolution having 
occurred in the meantime, and a republican commonwealth having taken the place of a proprie- 
tary and royal province — many of the remaining names still subsist and are well known in the 
identical form on which they appear on the original subscription list, made twenty-eight years 
before the Deolaration of Independence. 

A list of suhseribers for an AssemMy, under the direction of John Inglis, Lynford Lardnor, JohnWallace, and 
John Swift: Each subscription forty shillings, to he paid to any of the directors on suhscribing. 



Alexander Hamilton, 
T. Lawrence, jr., 
Johtt Wallace, 
Phineas Bond, 
Charles Willing, 
Josopli Sbippen, 
Samuel McCall, jr., 
George McCall, 
Edward Jones, 
Samuel McCall, sen., 
E. Conyingham, 
Joseph Sims, 



T. Lawrence, sen., 
David Mcllvaine, 
John Wilcocks, 
Charles Stesdman, 
John Kidd, 
William Bingham, 
Bnckridge Sims, 
John Swift, 
John Kearsley, jr., 
William Plumsted, 
Andrew Elliot, 
James Burd, 



James Ilamilton, 
Eobert Mackimen, 
William Allen, 
Archibald McCall, 
Joseph Turner, 
Thomas Ilopkinson, 
Eichard Peters, 
Adam Thomson, 
Alexander Steadman, 
Patrick Baird, 
John Sober, 
David Franks, 



John Inglis, 
E. Wiseheart, 
Abram Taylor, 
James Trotter, 
Samson Levy, 
Lynford Lardnor, 
Eichard Hill, jr., 
Benjamin Price, 
John Francis, 
William Mcllvaine, 
William Humphreys, 
William Peters, 



James Polyceen, 
William Franklin, 
Henry Harrison, 
John Hewson, 
Daniel Boyle, 
Thomas White, 
John Lawrence, 
Thomas Godons, 
John Cottenham, 
John Maland, 
William Cozzens, 



The above list is older than the one given by Mr. Watson, in his " Annals." That careful antiquary furnishes the 
following catalogue of fashioiiable " belles and dames" for the ball of the City Assembly in 1757 : 



Mrs. Allen, 
Mrs. Taylor, 
Mrs. Hamilton, 
Jlrs. Brotlierson, 
Mrs. Inglis, 
Mrs. Jeykell, 
Mrs. Franks, 
Mrs. Lydia M'Call, 
Mrs. Sam'l M'Call, sen., 
Mrs. Sam'l M'Call, jr., 
Mrs. Swift, 
Mrs. Sims, 
Mrs. WiUcocks, 
Mrs. Lawrence, 
Mrs. Greame, 
Mrs. Eobertson, 
Mrs Francis, 



Mrs. Joseph Shippen, 

Mrs. Dolgreen, 

Mrs. Phineas Bond, 

Mrs. Burd, 

Mrs. ChaS. Steadman, 

Mrs. Thomas White, 

Mrs. Johnes, 

Mrs. Warren, 

Mrs. Oswald, 

Mrs. Thomas Bond, 

Mrs. Davey, 

Mrs. Wm. Humphreys, 

Mrs. Pennery, 

Mrs. Henry Harrison, 

Mrs. Bingham, 

Mrs. Clymer, 

Mrs. Wallace, 



Mrs. Alex. Steadman, 
Mrs. Hopkinson, 
Miss Patty EUi.s, 
Mrs. Marks, 
Miss Molly Francis, 
Miss Betty Francis, 
Miss Osburn, 
Miss Sober, 
Miss Molly Lawrence, 
Miss Kitty Lawre: 
Mrs. George Smil 
Miss Nancy Hick 
Miss Sally Hunlock, 
Miss Peggy Harding, 
Miss MoUy M-Call, 
Miss Peggy M'Call, 
Mrs. Lardner, 



Miss Betty Plumsted, 
Miss Eebecca Davis, 
Miss Jeany Greame, 
Miss Nelly M'Call, 
Miss Eandolph, 
Miss Sophia White, 
Mrs. Venablos, 
Miss Hyatt, 
Miss Betty Clifften, 
Miss Molly Dick, 
Miss Fanny Jeykell, 
Miss Fanny Marks, 
Miss Peggy Oswald, 
Miss Betty Oswald, 
Miss Sally Woodrop, 
Miss Molly Oswald, 
Mrs. Willing, 



Miss Nancy Willing, 

Miss Dolly Willing, 

Mrs. M'llvaine, 

Miss Betty Gryden, 

Miss Sally Fishbourn, 

Miss Furnell, 

Miss Isabella Cairnie, 

Miss Pennyfaither, 

Miss Jeany Eicharason, 

Mrs. Eeily, 

Mrs. Graydon, 

Mrs. Eoss, 

Mrs. Pete-r Bard, 

Mrs. Franklin, 

Miss L. de Normandie;, 

Miss Pliebe Winecoop, 

Mrs. Harkly. 



14 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT. 

of botli public and private cliaracter enjoyed an enviable dictinc- 
tion. The name, tbougb found in Germany, bas become nearly ex* 
tinct in England, where it originated, and in our own country has 
hardly been known out of Philadelphia. The family has however 
in later days given a member to the peerage of Great Britain,* and 
the wife, fii'st of a count and afterwards of a marquis, of France,f 
while, without any title, a third has illustrated for a long time the 
beauty of American women in the metropolis of Europe. 

The first of this family of whom I have heard, although I be- 
lieve it is traced much further, was Joseph Willing, of Gloucester- 
shire, who married about two centuries since Ava Lowre, of that 
county, the heii'ess of a good estate which had descended to her 
through several generations of Saxon ancestors, and whose arms he 
seems J to have assumed, on their marriage, in place of his own. 
Theu" son Thomas married Anne Harrison, a grand-daughter in 
the paternal line of Thomas Harrison, § and in the maternal of 
Simon Mayne. The former was a Major General in the Protector's 
army and a member of the long Parhament ; the latter was also a 
prominent actor in Cromwell's time ; and both were members of 
the court which condemned Charles the First to death. Whether 
he considered this part of .his ancestral history a good title to con- 
sideration in a country settled by puritans, in the " dissidence of 
dissent," or whether he was attracted by the lising commercial glory 
of this country, I am not sufficiently informed to say ; but having 
visited America in 1720, and spent five years here, ]VIi\ Thomas 
Willins: brouo:ht his son Charles over in 1*728 and established him 

* The present Lord Ashburton, great-graadsou of Thomas Willing of Philadelphia. 

■j- La Marquise de Blaisel. 

jj. " Sable a hand, couped at the wristj^^asping three darts, one in pale and two in sallure, 
argent." 

§ The late President William Ilemy Harrison, was, I believe, a descendant of Major General 
Harrison, of Cromwell's army. At the time of his death a copy of an original painting oi' the 
Protector's friend was just completed for his gratification. 



PEACE. 15 

in commerce in Pliiladelpliia, liimself returning home. Charles, tlie 
first wlio remained in the country, may therefore be considered the 
founder of the American family. Few men in a private station 
have any where enjoyed greater influence or attained to a more 
dignified resjoectahility. His house, still standing at the southwest 
corner of Third street and WiUing's alley, though now deprived 
of its noble grounds, running back to Fourth street * and far onward 
down to Spruce street, and shaded with oaks that might be regard- 
ed as of the primeval forests,f is still remarked -for its spacious 
comfort and its old-fashioned repose. He pursued for a quarter of 
a century with great success and with noble fidelity to its best prin- 
ciples the profession of a merchant, in which he obtained the high- 
est consideration, by the scope, vigor and forecast of his under- 
standing, his great executive power, his unspotted integrity, and 
the amenity of his disposition and manners. Toward the close of 
his life he discharged with vigilance, dignity, and impartiality, the 
important functions of the chief magistracy of the city, in which 
he died, respected by the whole community, in November, 1754 — 
just one century ago — at the early age of forty-four. His wife 
was Anne, gi^and-daughter of Edward Shippen,J a person of com- 

* Tlie west end of this lot, fronting on Fourth street, Mr. Thomas Willing, son of the person 
here mentioned, sm-rendered to his son-in-law and nephew, Mr. Thomas Willing Francis, who 
built upon it the beautiful mansion now occupied by Mr. Joseph R. Ingersoll. On the southern 
part, Charles Willing himself built a residence, which has since given place to other buildings, 
for his son-in-law. Colonel William Byi'd, of Westover, in Virginia. General Washington for 
Bome time had his head-quarters at Philadelphia in this house. It was afterwards the residence 
of Chief Justice Chew. 

•{■ The now venerable buttonwood, standing in front of the old mansion at the corner of Third 
street and Willing's aUey, was planted in 1749, and is therefore one hundred and five years old. 

:j: William Shippen, of York, gentleman, h^d three sons, 1, Eobert, rector of Stockport, in 
Cheshire, and father of Robert, Principal of Brazen Nose, Oxford, 2, William, a leader in Parlia- 
ment in Robert Walpole's time (the "downright Shippen" of Pope), 3, Edward, born in 1639, 
who, having by the death of his brothers inherited their estates, came to America in 16*72. In 
1695 he wos elected Speaker of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and under the city charter ap- 
pointed in 1701 the first mayor of Philadelphia. From 1702 to 1704 he was president of the 
governor's council He died in 1712, leaving a vast landed estate. 



16 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

manding influence in tlie early hi&toiy of Pennsylvania. His son 
was Mr. Thomas Willing, a man whose \drtues have been recorded 
with a truth and eloquence which heighten the dignity of even 
such a character as his.^* 

V. 

In all civil wars men of hereditary rank and fortune are apt to 
adhere to the estahhshed authority, and this was eminently true in 
the war which led to American Independence. The loyalists were 
in a large degree people of good condition, accomplished in man- 
ners as well as in learning, and by their defection the country lost 
many persons who at the end of the contest would have been 
among her most useful citizens, and the brightest ornaments of her 
domestic life. The Fairfaxes, Galloways, Dulaneys, Delanceys, 
Kobinsons, Penns, Phillipses, Whites, and others, if of the Whig 
party would probably have been even more distinguished in society 
than in affairs, though the military and civil abilities which some of 
them displayed against us, or in foreign countries, showed that they 
might have nobly served thek fatherland in these capacities, and 
participated with the most successful and most honored of her faithful 
sons, in her affections and her grateful rewards. However strongly 
influenced by considerations of justice, many of them must have 
shared the feelings attributed by Freneau to Hugh Gaine, on dis- 

* Tlie following inscription, copied from a monument in Cbrist Cbureh grounds, Philadelphia, 
is understood to he from the pen of Mr. Horace Binuey: 

"In memory of Thomas 'Willing, Esquire, born nineteenth of December, 1731, O. S., died nineteenth of January, 
1821, aged eighty-nine years and thirty days. This excellent man, in all the relations of private !ile, and in various 
stations of liiijh public fust, deserved and acquired the devoted affection of his family and friends, and the universal 
respect of his follow-citizens. Prom 1754 to 1S07 he successively held the offices of secretary to the Congress of Dele- 
gates at Albany, mayor of the city of Philadelphia, her representative in the General Assembly, President of the Pro- 
vincial Congress, delegate to the Congress of the Confederation, President of the first chartered Bank in America, and 
President of the first Bank of the United States. With these public duties, he united the business of an active, en- 
terprising, an<l successful merchant, in ■which pursuit, for sixty yeors, his life was rich in examples of the influence of 
probity, fidelity, and perseverance upon the stability of commercial establishments, and upon that wliicli was his dis- 
tinguished reward upon earth, public consideration and esteem. Uis profound adoration of the Great Supreme, and 
his deep sense of dependence on his mercy, in life and in death, gave him, at the close of his protracted years, the 
bumble hope of a superior one in Heaven." 



PEACE. 17 

covering that lie liad connected himself with the losing side. One, 
a young gentleman of Maryland, who held a commission in the 
British army, after the war was over addressed from London to 
his sister, in this country, a poem on the subject, in which there 
are some passages of generous feeling and considerable literary 
merit, as will be seen from the following extracts, in which he 
laments the mistake so fatal to his happiness. Referring to his 
sister's portrait he says : 

" Methiiiks now starting from my trembling hands, 
Kissed into life, thy glowing image stands, 
While vivid fancy lends me power to trace 
The strong similitude of mind and face. 
I see, enraptured, how thy features prove 
Thy partial fondness, thy fraternal love. 
Those languid eyes, all eloi^uent in tears. 
Lament my absence, and attest thy fears — 
Those generous fears which have too plainly shown 
A brother's sorrows are not all his own I . . . . 

" Ah, what avails it that in early morn 
Life's fragrant roses bloomed without a thorn ! 
That on my youth propitious fortune smiled. 
And Hope, illusive, every hour beguiled I 
Ah, what avails it, but in me to show 
How near are joined the extremes of bhss and woel .... 
Not twenty summers had matured my prime 
When civil Discord, nurse of every crime. 
Inflamed by interest and by rage inspired, 
To active life had every bosom fired. 
Spurning at ease, impatient of control. 
While jocund health beat vigorous in my soul, 
To loyal arms with eager haste I flew. 
And, in my sovereign's service, early drew 
A faitliful sword, that boldly dared oppose 
The sons of Freedom — then, I thought, her foes ! 

" Let duller mortals, sensibly discreet. 
Whose callous hearts with frigid caution beat, 
Whose guarded conduct, cold Discretion guides, 
While sober Prudence o'er each step presides, 
With nice precision dubious cmrents weigh, 
And, as the scale preponderates, obey. 

3 



,r « 



18 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

From all my follies, all my faults, exempt, 

Beneath my pity, as beneath contempt, 

Let such exult ! .... In either war or love 

No half-formed passions do my bosom move ; 

But nobly daring, when the die was cast, 

And war's decree within my country passed. 

To fly from Pleasure's fascinating chains, 

Nor waste my youth in dull inglorious scenes, 

Unswayed by interest, unappalled by fear, 

My actions open, and my purpose cleai-. 

With frank avowal was that course pursued 

Whose flattering prospects promised public good. 

But had I thought that Britain bared her hand 

To forge a fetter for my native land. 

By all the sacred hosts of heaven I swear • 

My country's welfare should have been my care ! . . . . 

Let those who know me best, my thoughts portray, 

And flush my conduct in the face of day ; 

Let those who hate me most with truth proclaim 

If ever yet dishonor stamped my name." 

The autlior of this rare and curious poem appears to have been of 
the party of loyalists sent into Florida — 

" To guard the frontier from incursive foes 
Where, through rich canes, the rapid Tensaw flows, 
To waste whole weeks amid a savage band, 
Wild as the woods and worthless as the sand ; " 

and finally to have gone to London, where a course of dissipation 
injured his constitution, and made indispensable for his repose the 
gentle care which could be found only in the home he had forfeited 
by his mistaken loyalty. Reviewing his gay career he exclaims : 

" Ah, thoughtless, careless, in the transient scene, 
When coming pain should dissipate the dream, 
When Wisdom's slighted precepts in my breast 
Should waken fears which buoyant youth supprest. 
And sad Experience should this truth disclose. 
That one may feel the thorn, yet not enjoy the roso! " 



PEACE. 19 



VI. 



The most celebrated fete ever given in Pliiladelpliia was that 
of the Meschianza, during the revolution. The famous Major Andre^ 
whom writers of sentimental verses and romances have represented, 
with but little reason, as a very Bayard in character, left an interest- 
ing account of it, which has frequently been published. 

The next entertainment in the city, of which we have any 
very minute history, was that given on the occasion of the birthday 
of the Dauphin of France, by the French minister, after the close 
of the war. Of this we have an ample description, by Dr. Rush, 
who was present with his family. For weeks the city was amused 
with preparations for the splendid fete. Hundreds thronged daily 
to see the great building, erected on the grounds next to M. Lu- 
zerne's house, for a dancing room. Its width upon the street was 
sixty feet, and its roof was supported by lofty pillars, painted 
and festooned. The interior was finished with taste, and ornament- 
ed with a profusion of banners and appropriate pictures, and the 
smTOunding garden, with groves and fountaius, spacious walks and ' 
numerous seats, invited guests from the crowd and heat of the 
brilliant hall, to rest, or for pleasing conversation. For ten days 
before the event nothing else was talked of in the city. The 
shops were filled with customers ; hairdressers were retained ; and 
tailors, milliners, and mantuamakers, seemed to have in their keep- 
ing the happiness of all who belonged to the fashionable world. 
The anxiously expected day at length arrived. At an early hour a •''' 
corps of hairdressers took possession of the room assigned to the 
city watchmen, and so great was the demand on their attention, 
that many ladies were obliged to have their heads dressed between 
four and six o'clock in the mornins:. At seven o'clock in the even- 
uig, the hour appointed for the meeting of the company, it was 



20 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

believed that tlie streets, in tlie immediate vicinity of tlie minis- 
ter's house, contained more tlian ten thousand of the curious and 
idle men, women, and children, of the city and adjacent country. 

" At about eight o'clock," says Dr. Rush, " our family, consist- 
ing of Mrs. Rush, our cousin, Susan Hall, our sister Sukey, and my- 
self, with our good neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Henry, entered the 
apartment provided for this splendid entertainment. We were 
received through a wide gate, by the minister, and conducted by 
one of his family to the dancing room. The scene now almost ex- 
ceeded description. The numerous lights distributed through the 
garden, the splendor of the room we were approaching, the size of 
the company which was 'already collected, and which consisted of 
about seven hundred persons, the brilliancy and variety of their 
dresses, and the band of music, which had just begun to play, had 
together an effect which resembled enchantment. Sukey Stockton 
said, her mind was ' carried beyond and out of itself.' Here were 
ladies and gentlemen of the most ancient as well as of the most 
modern families. Here were lawyers, doctors, and ministers of the 
Gospel. Here were the learned faculty of the college, and among 
them many who knew not whether Cicero plead in Latin or in 
Greek, or whether Horace was a Roman or a Scotchman. Here 
were painters and musicians, poets and philosophers, and men who 
were never moved by beauty or harmony, or by rhyme or reason. 
Here were the president and members of Congress, governors of 
states, generals of armies, and the ministers of finance, war, and 
foreign affaii's. The company was mixed, but the mixture formed 
the harmony of the evening. The whole assembly behaved to 
each other as if they had been members of the same family. It 
was impossible to partake of the joy without being struck with 
the occasion of it : it was to celebrate the birth of a Dauphin of 
France." The Doctor indulges in some agreeable reflections 



PEACE 21 

on the cliange of feeling toward France, induced by lier recent 
assistance against Great Britain, wMcli this imposing festival illus- 
trated and confii'med ; and lie then proceeds to describe the groups 
into which the vast assembly naturally divided itself. " Here," he ^' 
says, "were to be seen heroes and patriots in close conversation 
with each other; Washington and Dickinson held several dia- 
logues together ; Rutledge and Walton, from the south, here con- 
versed with Lincoln and Duane, from the east and the north ; and 
Mifflin and Reed accosted each other, with all the kindness of 
ancient friends." At half-past eight o'clock commenced the danc- 
ing; at nine, there was an exhibition of fire-works; at twelve, in 
three large tents, in the adjacent grounds, was served the supper ; 
and before three in the morning, the whole company had separat- 
ed and the lights were extinguished. 

VII. 

The famous belle. Miss Vining,^' in a letter to Governor Dickin- 
son, in 1783, complains that Philadelphia had lost all its gayety 

'i 

*Miss Vining, in 1T83, was twenty -five years of age. Miss Montgomery, in her "Reminis- 
cences of Wilmington," says her rare beauty and graceful form commanded admiration, and hei- 
intellectual endowments — a mind stored with historical knowledge, and sparkling effusions of 
■vvit—entertained the literati and amused the gay. The singular fluency and elegance with 
which she spoke the French language, with her vivacity, grace, and amiability, had made her 
a general favorite with the French officers, who praised her in their home correspondence to such 
a degree that her name became familiar in Paris, and the queen, Marie Antoinette, spok^ of 
her with enthusiasm, to Mu T?fferson, expressing a wish that she might some time see her at the 
Tuileries. The intimate friendships she formed during the Revolution were preserved after the 
peace, by a large correspondence with distinguished men. Lafayette appears to have been very 
much attached to her, and she wrote to him frequently until she died. Foreigners of rank 
rarely visited Wilmington, after Miss Vining's retirement from the society of Philadelphia, with- 
out soliciting an introduction to her. Among her guests were the Duke de Liancourt, the Duke 
of Orleans (Louis Philippe), and many others ; and it is related that General Miranda, passing 
through the town in a mail-coach, at night, left his card for her at the post-olfice. The death of 
her brother, a man of eminent abilities, who was chosen at an early age a member of Congress 
from Delaware, was followed by a series of misfortunes, and retiring from the gay world, in the 
maturity of her charms, she passed the closing years of her life in poverty and seclusion. 



/ 



22 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

•with the removal of Congress from the city, but adds, " You know 
however, that here alone can be found a truly intellectual and 
refined society, such as one naturally expects in the capital of a 
gi'eat country." Miss Franks, who was not less celebrated, for 
her wit, and the dashing gayety of her manners, agreed with Miss 
Vining as to the superiority of the men and women of Philadel- 
phia, and in an autograph letter of hers which is before me, written 
while on Long Island, and addressed to her elder sister, the w^ife 
of Andrew Hamilton, of " Woodlands," west of the Schuylkill, she 
presents us with a graphic and amusing description of the higher 
social life of New York, with the contrasts it offered to that in her 
own city. This letter, though so long, is at the same time so 
unique and piquant that I copy it nearly entire : 

. . . . " You will think I have taken up my abode for the sum- 
mer at Mrs. Van Home's, but on the contrary, this day I return 
to the disagreeable, hot town, much against my will, and the in- 
clination of the family. I cannot however bear papa's being so 
much alone, and he will not be persuaded to quit the city, though 
I am sure he can have no business to keep him there. Two nights 
he staid with us, which is all I have seen of him since I left home. 
I am quite angry with him. I have written you several times 
these two weeks ; so you can have no cause to complain, unless it is 
of being too often troubled with my nonsense. 

" You ask a description of the Miss Van Home who was wdth 
me — Cornelia. She is in disposition as fine a girl as ever you saw, 
with a great deal of good humor and good sense. Her person is 
too large for a beauty, in my opinion, and yet I am not partial to 
little women; her complexion, eyes, and teeth, are very good; 
and she has a great quantity of Hght brown hair (entre nous^ tLe 
girls of New York excel us Philadelphians in that particular, and 
in their forms), a sweet countenance and an agreeable smile 



■ \ 



PEACE. 23 

Her sister Kitty is tlie belle of tlie family, I tliink, thougli some 
give tlie preference to Betsey. . . . Kitty's form is mucli in tlie style 
of our admired Mrs. Galloway, but slie Is rather taller and larger — 
her complexion very fine, and the finest hair I ever saw. Her 
teeth are beginning to decay, which is the case with most New 
York gii'ls, after eighteen. She has a great deal of elegance of 
manners. By the bye, few ladies here know how to entertain com- 
pany in their own houses, unless they introduce the card-table. 
Except the Van Homes, who are remarkable for their good sense 
and ease, I don't know a woman or girl who can chat above half 
an hour, and that on the form of a cap, the color of a ribbon, or 
the set of a hoop, stay, ovjwpon. I will do our ladies — ^that is, the 
Philadelphians — ^the justice to say, that they have more cleverness 
:n the turn of an eye, than those of New York have in their whole 
composition. With what ease have I seen a Chew, a Penn, an 
Oswald, an Allen, and a thousand others, entertain a large cu'cle 
of both sexes, the conversation, without the aid of cards, never 
flagging nor seeming in the least strained or stupid. Here — or, 
more properly speaking, in New York — you enter the room with a 
formal, set curtsy, and after the how-dos, things are finished ; all's 
a dead calm till the cards are introduced, when you see pleasure 
dancing in the eyes of all the matrons, and they seem to gain new 
life. The maidens, if they have favorite swains, frequently decline 
playing, for the pleasure of making love ; for to all appearance it is 
the ladies, not the gentlemen, who nowadays show a preference. 
It is here, I fancy, always leap-year. For my part, who am used 
to quite another style of behavior, I cannot help showing surprise 
— ^perhaps they call it ignorance — when I see a lady single out her 
pet, and lean almost into his arms, at an assembly or a play-house, 
(which I give my honor I have too often seen both with the mar- 
ried and single), or hear one confess a partiahty for a man, whom, 



24 THE REPUBLICAN COUET. 

perhaps, she has not seen three times : ' Well ! I declare he is a 
delightful creature, and I could love him for my husband ! ' one 
exclaims, or, ' I could marry such a gentleman!* Indeed scandal 
says that, in the cases of most who have been married, the first 
advances came from the lady's side, or she got a male friend to 
introduce the intended victim and pass her off. This is really the 
case, and with me ladies thus lose half their charms. I suspect 
there would be more marriages were another mode adopted : they 
have made the men so saucy, that I sincerely believe the lowest 
ensign thinks he has but to ask, an^ have, — ^that a red coat and 
smart epaulette * is sufficient to secure a female heart. 

" I was obliged to cut just as I finished the word heart ! Gen 
eral Kobertson, Commodore Afflick, and Major Murray made their 
appearance, and as I was writing in the parlor quite en disliabille^ 
I was obliged to make the best of my way out. I am glad they 
came, as it broke my ill-natured train of ideas ; I am quite ashamed 
of it ; there is too much truth in what I have written, to be known, 
and if it should be known, I '11 throw all the blame on you, as it was 
owing to the questions you asked of this family, which, remember, 
I again say are excepted in every particular, that I describe thus the 
common run in New York society. 

" I shall send a pattern of the newest bonnets : there is no crown, 
but gauze is raised on wire, and pinched to a sugar loaf at the top, 
— ^the lighter the trimming the more fashionable — and all quilling. 
Nancy Van Home and myself employed yesterday morning in trying 
to dress a rag baby in the fashion, but could not succeed ; it shall 
go, however, as it will in some degree give you an opinion on the 
subject. As to the jacket, and the pinning on of the handkerchief, 
yours, you say, reaches to the arm. I know it, but it must be 

* This was written before the evacuation of H^ew Yoi'k by the British, and Miss Franks was 
herself already engaged to a distinguished British officer. 



PEACE. 25 

pinned up to tlie top of tlie shoulders, and quite under tlie arm, as 
you would a girl's vandyke. Tlie fuller it sets tlie handsomer it is 
thought. Nobody ever sets a handkerchief out in the neck, and a 
gauze handkerchief is always worn double, and the largest that can 
be got ; it is pinned round the throat, as Mrs. Penn always did, 
and made to set out before like the chitterling of a man's shirt. 
The ladies here always wear either a pin or a brooch, as the men 
do. /Two more beaus ! Captain Afflick and- and Mr. Biddulph, the 
first frightful, and the other very genteel and clever. 

" Lord ! if this letter is seen, I shall be killed ! or I must fly to 
you, for protection. You may imagine what an indifferent I am, 
to continue writing, with beaus in the room ; but so it is ! I am 
not what I was. 

"You 'beg to know' what toy presents are: when they arrive 
I'll tell you. They are on board Cooper and Miller's ship, which 
Mr. Wier says I must not expect till September. How provoking ! 
Aunt Eicha wiites me word by the last packet, or rather by Oliver 
De Lancey, who is come in it, that by him I shall have a hand- 
some dress cap, of Charlotte De Lancey's choosing, and two pairs 
of shoes. The shoes came with her letter, and I sent post-haste to 
town for the cap, but did not get it. Mr. De Lancey said she 
talked of sending it by him, but afterwards thought it would be 
safer to. come by the fleet; so that in September, and not before, I 
shall be fine ! The shoes, or rather the patterns for them, are, one 
pair, dark maroon, embroidered with gold, and the other, white, 
with pink. Charlotte says she hopes they '11 be wedlock shoes — • 
which I much doubt. The dear good old lady seems in the fidgets 
to have me married ; I wish she herself were younger ; I 'd cer- 
tainly recommend him to her — she seems so fond of him. . . . 

" There is so much talking, I scarce know what I write ; it is to 
a sister however, and I hope her partial eyes will not permit her to 



26 THE REPUBLICAN COUET. 

Bee blunders, or if she should, that her kindness will find excuses foi 
them. . . . The letter is so long that you must make the gu'ls take a 
share in it, as I have not time to write to them now, and there is 
nothing new to tell them. Tell Peggy Chew I hope she '11 accept 
^ the spangles and thread — ^'t is the only return I can make for the 
pleasure I receive from her very entertaining letters. Yesterday 
the grenadiers had a race at the Flat Lands, and in the afternoon 
this house swarmed with the beans, and some very smart ones. 
How the girls would have envied me, could they have peeped in 
and seen how I was surrounded ! and yet, I should have been as 
happy, if not much more so, if spending the afternoon with the 
Thursday party at "Woodlands. I am glad to hear you 're out 
there, as the town must be dreadful this hot summer. New York 
is bad enough, though I do not think it as w^arm as Philadelphia. 
Your health, in punch 1 The Van Homes join with me in begging 
to be remembered, particularly to Mrs. Harleston and her mother : 
I hope you'll visit them; do, if 'tis only on Harleston's account, 
whose memory I ever shall respect. I have spent happier days with 
him than I fear I ever shall experience again ! K you tell Billy 
Hamilton I say so, he '11 swear I still retain a remainder of my for- 
mer penchant ; but assure him 't is only a pure and lively friend- 
ship. Letters, this moment, from you and Peggy Chew, and one 
from Mrs. Arnold ! I must stop to read them. . . Tell Peggy I give 
her leave to read all I write, if she '11 take the trouble. I am 
happy here ; tell her 't is only for a visit ; I wish to be with you. . . 
Love to every body." 

This letter is very characteristic of its author. She was the 
youngest of three daughters of David Franks, a wealthy Jewish 
merchant of Philadelphia. The eldest sister, Phila, was married 
to General Oliver De Lancey, who soon after the breaking out of 
the revolution accepted a commission in the British army, having 




nJ^iUIEIEi 



PEACE. 27 

previously conimanded a New York regiment during tlie war with 
France. Tlie second, Abigail, to whom the above letter was ad- 
dressed, was the wife of Andrew Hamilton, who owned the finest 
rural residence in Pennsylvania. Rebecca Franks, soon after the 
war, was married to Lieutenant General Sir Henry Johnston, and 
subsequently resided in England.* 

VIII. 

The most ample and interesting description of the size and ap- 
pearance of the city of New York, at the close of the war, is con- 
tained in a discourse pubhshed a few years ago by William Alexan- 
der Duer, LL. D., whose father. Colonel William Duer, previously and 
for many years afterward honorably distinguished in affairs, then 
resumed his residence here. Colonel Duer had been married, at 
Baskenridge, New Jersey, on the twenty-seventh of July, 1779, 
to the beautiful Katherine Alexander, daughter of Lord Stirling, 
and the two children referred to in the following extract are the 
venerable author, who lately presided over Columbia College, and 
the honorable John Duer, who continues to grace the bench of the 
Superior Court. 

" My first recollections of this city," says Dr. Duer, " relate to a 
time when it was not much larger, or its population much greater, 
than the additions now annually made to them. It was in the 
month of November, 1783, close upon the evacuation of the city 
by the British forces, and the entry of General Washington at the 
head of the American army, that our family caravan followed, in 
true patriarchal style, parents and children, (as yet there were but 

* There are many allusions to Miss Franks in contemporary letters and memoirs. Iler 'wit 
was not particularly commendable for its delicacy, and she was sometimes worsted with 
weapons like her own, as was the case in her celebrated encounter with General Charles LeCt 
The reader may find a pleasant account of her in Littell's edition of the Memoirs of Alexandei 
Graydon. 



28 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

two of US,) man-servants and maid-servants, and a stranger that 
liad been received within our gates. We had landed at the old 
Albany Pier, near the foot of Whitehall street ; and as we pursued 
our course upwards, the first objects that arrested my attention 
were the dismounted cannon lying under the walls of the Old Fort, 
or Upper Battery, over which they had apparently been toppled 
by the British soldiery, in the wa,ntonness or haste of their depar- 
ture. The first view of these pieces of ordnance produced some 
confusion in my infant mincl. We had arrived from West Point, 
where I had been accustomed to the sight of artillery in various 
positions, and I sagely concluded that we had put back, and re- 
landed at that post. But I was soon undeceived. Passing the 
Bowling Green, with a somewhat triumphant glance at the pedes- 
tal in its centre from which the leaden image of George the Thu'd 
had been dethroned, we found ourselves advancing into the Bwrnt 
District^ in nearly the same part of Broadway which was more 
recently the scene of a similar calamity. It extended in this quar- 
ter—to which, however, it was by no means confined — up both 
sides of Broadway, to Rector street,^'* with the exception of some 
half dozen houses f left standing near the Lower or present Bat- 

* Tlie great fire of September 21, 1776, commenced at the Whitehall Slip ; and burned all the 
houses on the east side of the slip, and the west side of Broad street to Beaver street, both sides 
of which were destroyed. It then crossed Broadway to Beaver Lane, (now Morris street,) burn- 
ing all the houses on both sides of Broadway to Rector street on the west, and some few houses 
in New street on the east. Besides Trinity Church, (tlie one before the last,) this fir<» destroyed 
a Lutheran church at the lower corner of Rector street, where Grace Church was afterwards 
erected ; and then extending in the rear of Trinity Church along Lumber street, in which all the 
houses were burned, as well as every thing in the rear of Broadway to Partition (now Fulton) 
street, in which every house on both sides, and as far as Mortlike (now Barclay) street, and down 
to the North River, were destroyed. The College Yard, and the vacant ground in its rear, put 
an end to this conflagration, in which about five hundred houses were consumed. — Sec Dunlap'a 
Hist. ii. 78. On the 7th of August, 1778, another fire broke out, in the night, in which about 
three hundred houses in Great and Little Dock and the adjacent streets, were destroyed. 

\ From the present Nos. 1 to 11, then comprising the family residences of Captain Archibald 
Kennedy, R. N., afterwards Earl of Cassilis; John Watts, sen.; Robert R. Livinggton, sen,; John 
Stevens, sen. ; Aug'istus Van Cortlandt, Henry White, <fec. 



J 



PEACE. 29 

teiy. No visible attempts had. been made since tlie fii'e for the re- 
moval of tlie ruins ; and as tlie edifices destroyed were chiefly of 
brick, the skeletons of the remaining walls cast their grim shadows 
upon the pavement, imparting an unearthly aspect to the street. 
The semicircular front of old Trinity still reared its ghastly head, 
and seemed to deepen while it hallowed the solitude of the sur- 
rounding graves. But before reaching it, the gloom was cheered 
by another revival of my military impressions, at the sight of some 
remaining pickets of a stockade in the lane opposite Verlentenberg 
Hill, which once formed a portion of the old city wall, crossed 
Broadway diagonally, passed down the opposite street, and gave to 
it its name. 

" Turning into this street we seemed, at last, to have entered a 
city of the living. Thei'e-istood the old Presbyterian meeting- 
house : not that which lately crossed the ferry to Jersey City, but 
its rough-hewn predecessor, in. which Whitfield had once poured 
forth the torrent of his eloquence, and whose members had, in 
after years, been refreshed by milder and more fertilizing streams 
flowing from the lips of a Rodgers or a Miller. There it stood, in , 
solitary gloom, to which the turmoil of the carrying trade, now 
driving at the same spot, aflTords the liveliest imaginable reverse. 
Next, at the head of Broad street, we descried the City Hall, in 
its primitive nakedness, forming a still stronger though not more 
striking contrast to the Grecian temple which has succeeded it. 
The old Hall, before its conversion to the use of the federal govern- 
ment, stood upon open brick arches, under which you passed from 
street to street in one direction, and in another, along the same 
street in which we were travelling. Nearly opposite, was the mo- 
dest dwelling of Alexander Hamilton, upon part of the present site 
of the Mechanics' Bank. Beyond, at the intersection of Smith 
(now William) street, we beheld the effigies of a more widely cele- 



30 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

,^. brate J but not more illustrious man ; there, erect upon its pedes- 
k;' • f^"; tal, was the statue of tlie elder Pitt, mutUated and defaced, in resent- 
■i : ment of his speech, against the acknowledgment of our Indepen- 
dence, in a manner more evincive" of the patriotism than of the 
good taste of the despoilers. 

" Our family party now wheeled to the left, and j^assing up Smith- 
street, till we came to the corner of King, now Pine street, we took 
up om* abode for the winter at the family mansion of the Philh2:)ses,* 
then kept as a lodging-house, by a respectable matron of the name 
of Mercer, but afterwards, before its fall, more renowned as the 
Bank Cotfee House, kept by the inimitable host Mblo. On the 
next May-day — that day devoted by our I>utch ancestors to uproar 
\ and removal — ^we resumed our peregrinations, nor stopped till we 
> arrived at the upper extremity of Broadway, at the utmost limit of 
I the city pavement, where we took possession of the house opposite 
^JL^t. Paul's Chapel, now occupied by the Chemical Bank. There 
was so little choice in regard to situation, that we were fain to con- 
tent ourselves with this remote residence, especially as the house 

* Removed withia these few years, to make way for wareliouses. At the corner immediately 
opposite, -was the residence of one branch of the Lndlows ; opposite to them, in Smith street, was 
that of the Duyckincks. Proceeding northward, at the corner of Little Queen, now Cedar street, 
was a family of Beekmans, directly opposite, John Alsop, a retired merchant, a delegate to the 
first Continental Congress, and father-in-law of Eufus King, who afterwards occupied the house 
for several years. It was removed some time since, upon the exten'sion of Cedar street. At the 
southwest corner of Crown, now Liberty street, was the famous retail hardware and fancy shop 
— as such establishments were then properly called — of Francis Ogsbury, continued many years 
afterwards by his sons and successors. Returning to King street, and proceeding southwardly, 
aei'oss Wall, and down Smith street, we come to the entrance of Garden street, in which stood the 
" little Dutch Church," tne oldest in the city, and the farthest down town. At the upp^a* corner 
of Smith and Garden streets, was the fashionable haberdashery of Grove Bend ; at the lower cor- 
ner, the residence formerly of the Clarksons, and afterwards of Colonel Sebastian Bauman, the post- 
master, a revolutionary officer appointed to that station by General Washington ; there he kept 
his office, as did his successor. General Bailey. Adjoining were the Kembles, and opposite the 
Costers. Below, opposite Princess street, as that part of Beaver street was then called, was a 
branch of the Van Homes, and in that and the small streets and lanes in the vicinity, including 
that part of Store street, then called Duke street, and Mill street, in which was their synagogue 
— the houses were princij^ally inhabited by the Jews. 



PEACE. 31 

itself was one of tlie best, as well as one of tlie few to be rented in 
the city. It was, to be sure, not very convenient, in point of situ- 
ation, for a town-house ; but then it rejoiced in some of the advan- 
tages of a country retreat. TLe fields were open to the north, as 
far as a line ranging eastwardly from Warren street, where the 
prospect was bounded by those more useful than agreeable objects 
the Bridewell, the Poor House, the Gaol and the Gallows. Towards 
the west, however, there was nothing to obstruct the view of the 
North River, but two low houses at the corner of Yesey street, and 
the College building, as yet unfurnished with wings, and unadorned 
with stucco. The ' fields,' as the area comprised in the Park was 
then called, were* green, but neither inclosed nor planted, and the 
only trees in sight, besides the young, now old ones, in front of the 
College, were the striphng growth that peered above the tea and 
the mead and cake gardens, along the west side of the fields. 

" Although the streets leading from Broadway to the river had 
been laid out as high as Warren street, yet they were but partially 
built upon, and that, for the most part, with houses of an inferior 
description. ISTofie above Dey street had been regulated and paved ; 
nor had the ridge, commencing near the Battery, and extending the 
length of the island, been dug through as far even as Cortlandt- 
street. Great Dock street, or that part of Pearl between White- 
hall and Coenties Slip, with the other sti'eets in the immediate 
neighborhood of Fort George, within which was the colonial Go- 
vernment-house, had long been considered the court-end of the 
town ; * but, even before the Bevolution, Wall street was regarded 
as a rival seat of fashion ; f to which it established an exclusive 

* Here were the residences of the Van Dams, De Lanceys, Livingstons, Bayards, Morrises, 
Crugers, De Peysters, and some others of the provincial notabilities. 

\ In Wall-street were the Verplancks, Marstons, Liullows, Winthrops, Whites, and others ,; 
who being tories, remained in the city during the Revolution ; after which the Whig families of 
Lamb, Denning, Buchanan, Van Home, &c., got in among them. Here too Daniel McCormick 
kept his bachelor's hall, and open house, and Mrs. Daubeney her fashionable boarding-house, for 



4 



32 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

claim, and maintained it until superseded by Park Place,'"^ or Robin- 
son street, as it bad previously been called ; whose pretensions in 
that respect bave, in tbeir turn, become nearly obsolete. Little 
Dock street, now merged in "Water street, and that part of the 
original Water street wbich lay adjacent to the Albany Pier, were 
occupied by the river trade ; wbile tbe remainder of Water street, 
and suck parts of Front street as bad already been recovered from 
tke river,' formed tke emporium of foreign commerce. This, in- 
deed, was tke case as far up as tke Coffee House Slip, and gradu- 
ally extended to Maiden Lane, at tke foot of wkick were tke Vly 
Market, and tke Brooklyn Ferry ; wkilst at tke kead of it stood 
tke Oswego Market, fronting on Broadway. Above, on tke East 
River, as far as Dover street, tke wkarves were ckiefly improved 
by our eastern bretkren witk tkeir cargoes of notiQns^ or occupied 
by our neigkbors fi'om Long Island, witk tkeir more substantial 
freigkts of oysters, clams, and fine wkite sand. Beyond Dover- 
street, tke skip-yards commenced, extending, at fii'st, no fartker 
tkan to tke New, or, as it is now called. Pike Skj). 

" Crossing from Dover to Great Queen, since Pearl street, and 
pursuing tke course of tke latter beyond its intersection witk Ckat- 
ham street,f and along tkat part of Pearl tken called Magazine- 
gentlemen only^ and "waa generally fiUed ■with members of Congress during its sessions in this city. 
Greenleaf, the republican printer, planted his batteries so as to command the strong hold of tory- 
ism, at the corner of Pearl street-j-'under Eivington, of the Royal Gazette — in case the latter 
should ever recommence his fire, ^ut he took the oath of allegiance to the new government, and 
was permitted to remain in his bookstore, (afterwards the auction rooms of the Messrs. Hone,) as 
did his fellow-laborer and neighbor, Hugh Gaine, of the Bible and Crown, who after the di- 
vorce of church and state on this side of the Atlantic, removed the royal emblems from his sign. 

* In the mean time, Cortlandt street enjoyed an ephemeral reputation for fashion, from the 
presence of Sir John Temple, Colonels Duer and Walker, Major Fairlie, and subsequently the 
British Colonel Crawford, who had been Governor of the Bermudas, but, on a visit to New York, 
married the widow of Robert Cambridge Livingston, and remained here till he died. 

f Near the head of Dover street, and at the junction of Pearl and Cherry streets, stands the 
old family mansion of Walter Franklin, a member of the society of Friends, and an eminent mer- 
chant, whose wealth was indicated by the dimensions of his dwelling. The late Governor De 
Witt*Clinton married one of his daughters, and afterwards occupied his house. But it had pre- 



PEACE. 33 

street, we arrived at tlie Kolc\ or Fresli Water Pond, wlience, 
tlirougli tlie 'Tea- water Pump,' in Cliatliam street, the city was 
supplied with water for domestic use, distributed to the inhabitants 
by means of carts surmounted by casks, similar to those now used 
for mortaring the streets. Nor was this the only use made of the 
' Collect,' as it was called in English ; its southern and eastern banks 
were lined with furnaces, potteries, breweries, tanneries, rope-walks, 
and other manufactories ; all drawing their supphes of water from 
the pond. Besides, it was rendered ornamental as well as useful. 
It was the grand resort in winter of oui' youth for skating ; and no 
person who has not beheld it, can realize the scene it then exhibited 
in contrast to that part of the city under which it now lies buried. 
The ground between the Collect and Broadway rose gTadually 
from its margin to the height of one hundred feet, and nothing can 
exceed in brilliancy and animation the prospect it presented on a 
fine winter day, when the icy surface was ahve with skaters darting 
in every dii^ection with the swiftness of the wind, or bearing down 
in a body in pursuit of the ball driven before them by then* liur- 
lies ; while the hill side was covered with spectators, rising as in 
an amphitheatre, tier above tier, comprising as many of the fair 
sex, as were sufficient to adorn, and necessary to refine the assem- 
blage ; while their presence served to increase the emulation of the 
skaters." 

viously been rendered more illustrious as the first residence of General Washington in.this city 
after his election as President of the United States. It has since been altered, and the lower part 
converted into shops. In the rear of this, in Pearl street, was the Quaker Meeting House ; and 
this quarter of the city, as far as Chatham street, was principally inhabited by members of that 
society. But the more wealthy ones had their establishments lower down, as far as Maiden Lane. 
Here were the Pearsalls, the Pryors, the Embrees, the Effinghams, the Hickses, the Hawxhursts, 
the Halletts, the Havilands, the Cornells, the Kenyons, the Townsends, the Tituses, the WiUetts, 
the Wrights, <fec. <fec. Interspersed, however, with their residences were others, equally substan- 
tial, though not as plain, such as those of the Waltons and Eoosevelts. The Bank of New York 
was first kept in the larger Walton House, and its first President, the elder Isaac Roosevelt, had 
his dwelling nearly opposite. 



34 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

IX, 

Washestoton", meanwhile, sm-rounded by Lis family and friends^ 
was busy with his long neglected private affairs, and with great 
plans for the improvement and extension of inland navigation, un- 
til the meeting of the convention for forming the federal Constitu- 
tion, of which he reluctantly consented to be a member. In the 
beginning of 1784 he wrote to Lafayette, " At length, my dear Mar- 
quis, I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac ; and 
under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree, free from 
the bustle of a camp, and the busy scenes of public life, I am solac- 
ing myself with those tranquil enjoyments, of which the soldier, 
who is ever in pursuit of fame, the statesman, whose watchful days 
and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the 
welfare of his own, or perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if 
this globe were insufficient for us all, and the com-tier, who is al- 
ways watching the countenance of his prince, in hopes of catch- 
ing a gi-acious smile, can have very little conception. 1 1 have 
not only retired from all public emj^loyments, but I am retiring 
within myself, and shall be able to view the solitary walk, and 
tread the paths of private life, with a heartfelt satisfaction. Envi- 
ous of none, I am determined to be pleased with all ; and this, my 
dear friend, being the order of my march, I will move gently down 
the stream of life until I sleep with my fathers." In the following 
August Lafayette revisited this country and passed two weeks with 
the Chief at Mount Vernon ; and when he was gone Washington set 
'' off on horseback to see his lands in the western country, travelhng 
in this way nearly seven hundred miles, along the routes of his 
earlier military experiences, to the scene of Braddock's defeat, at 
Fort Du. Quesne. What a marvellous book, could they have been 
recorded, would have been the hero's reveries and dreams, thus 



PEACE. 35 

wandering between his own great history and germinating empirea 
in which " the free spiiit of mankind at length " should " throw 
its fetters off." After his retm*n he again saw Lafayette, who had 
accomplished an extensive tour thi'ough the northern states, and 
been every where greeted with fit public honors. When at last 
they turned from each other, at Annapolis, to which place Wash- 
ington accompanied his departing friend, he writes : " I often asked 
myself, as om* carriages separated, whether that was the last sight 
I should ever have of you ? and though I wished to say No, yet my 
fears answered Yes. I called to mind the days of my youth, and 
found they had long since fled, to retmm no more ; that I was now 
descending the hill I had been fifty-two years climbing, and that, 
though I was blest with a good constitution, I was of a short-lived 
family, and might soon expect to be entombed in the mansion of 
my fathers. These thoughts darkened the shades, and gave a gloom 
to the picture, and consequently to my prospect of seeing you 
again. But I will not rej^ine ; I have had my day." It was indeed 
the last meeting of Lafayette and Washington ; but the Chief had 
not yet lived his day; stormy or dark or splendid, thus much of it ♦ 
was but the morning, and now he was resting, not in its night, but 
in its calm though clouded noon ; and new toils, different and not 
less glorious, awaited him before the serenely magnificent setting 
of his sun, and the completion of the vast proportions of his cha- 
racter, so that it should stand not alone for the admii'ation but for 
the loving and reverent amazement of the world. 

With Governor Clinton, of New York, Washington proposed 
buying the mineral springs, at Saratoga, but something prevent- 
ed. His old companions in arms, in France, were very anxious 
that he should spend a winter in Paris, but he dechned. As of- 
ten as he was called away from home the admiring and grateful 
people greeted him with the firing of cannon and the ringing 



36 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

of "bells, but lie received all honors modestly, and all evidences of 
affection gratefully. Houdon came from France to model liis sta- 
tue, and Pine from England to paint his portrait, and Mount Ver- 
non was thronged with illustrious guests from many nations, eager 
to become personally acquainted with the greatest of men, who 
passed his days and nights without a thought or fancy of ambition, 
in the cultivation of his farm — the happiest of men as well as the 
greatest. There is nothing in all history more respectable, more 
dignified, or more wonderful, considering the common infirmities 
of human nature, than those four years of Washington's retirement 
and repose, between the revolution and the convention for forming 
the federal Constitution, in which, as if it were a matter of course, 
he was called to preside. 



THE CONVENTION. 
I. 

And now it becomes necessary to ask, Wliat was tlie political 
condition of tlie colonies when the struggle for independence at 
last was over ? In tlie language of Washington, success had but 
afforded the United States " the opportunity of hecoming a respect- 
able nationP Feeble indeed had been the chain which had bound 
them together as united states during the conflict; its strongest 
links were an innate hatred of tyranny, and the external pressure 
which forced them to coalesce. Not the least marvellous feature 
in the story of the Eevolution, is its ultimate triumph under a sys- 
tem so weak and inadequate as that furnished by the old articles 
of confederation. In other hands than those of Washington as 
commander, and Morris as financier, it may well be doubted whe- 
ther the hour of triumph would then have come. To the latter of 
these patriots less than justice has been done by some of his own 
countrymen, whUe the intelligent and observant foreigner who 
has told, in Italian, the story of the struggle, with a true apprecia- 
tion of his worth, has said, " the Americans certainly owed, and 
still owe, as much acknowledgment to the financial operations of 
Kobert Morris, as to the negotiations of Benjamin Franklin, or 
even to the arms of Washington." 



38 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

When the contest began, it was at once seen that a recognized 
union of some kind among the colonies was essential. From New 
Hampshire to Georgia there was indeed the same proud spirit, 
which refused to hrook oppression ; brave hearts were every where 
roused to resistance, and strong arms were every where ready to 
strike : but concentrated and harmonious purpose and action were 
indispensable. The sagacious mind of Franklin saw this at once ; 
nor was he now for the first time alive to this necessity. If he had 
not originated, he had at least sketched a plan of union for the 
colonies, in the convention of colonial delegates at Albany, in 
1754; and this, as the historian has remarked, "was the first offi- 
cial suggestion of what grew afterwards to be our present federal 
Constitution." That plan was rejected by the colonies : the time 
for it was not yet ; but at last the auspicious period had arrived 
once more to propose a recognition of the great principle of confed- 
erated unity. 

As early, therefore, as the summer of IT '7 5, Dr. Franklin sub- 
mitted to Congress articles of confederation, and, in a certain con- 
tingency, of perpetual union among the colonies : these were not 
then finally acted on. Had they, however, been adopted, they 
would have united the colonies in a simple league only, until the 
terms of reconciliation proposed by the previous Congress, in a pe- 
tition to the king, should be agreed to, until reparation should be 
made for injuries done to Boston and Charlestown, until restraints 
upon commerce and the fisheries should be removed, and until all 
British troops should be withdrawn from America. In the event 
of refusal by the crown in these particulars, the confederation 
would have been perpetual, but not otherwise. In truth the feel- 
ing of a majority of the colonists was to endure as long as possible, 
before a final rupture ; and much the larger portion of the congress 
-itself would have rejoiced in an honorable reconciliation. Some, 



THE CON\^ENTION. 39 

however, tliere were, wlio deemed tlie hope of sucli an event en- 
tirely delusive, and indulged in no visionary expectations of mag- 
nanimity, forbearance or equity from tlie mother country. 

The proposition for a confederacy remained unacted on until 
June, 1TT6, when the pressure of events forced it into notice. Con- 
gress had then reached the resolution of declaring America inde- 
pendent, which was afterwards embodied in. the memorable docu- 
ment of the fourth of July, IT 7 6. This resolution imposed upon 
that body the necessity of such a compact, as well for mutual aid 
as for obtaining foreign assistance. 

On the eleventh of June, therefore, the very day that followed 
the adoption of the resolution to declare independence, a commit- 
tee was appointed to frame articles of confederation. The task 
allotted them was one of delicacy and difficulty. On the tweKth 
of July they reported a plan consisting of twenty articles. In that 
day, the men to whom were intrusted the destinies of the country, 
had no scruple, when they deemed it needful for the country's 
good, to keep secret their doings, until the proper time for disclo- 
sure came. They did not affect the dangerous liberalism of that 
mad generosity which would transact all public business, even that 
purely executive, with open doors ; and thus communicate, without 
scruple, the most important matters of state to foreign powers, which, 
in their negotiations with this country, take good care never to re- 
ciprocate such uncalculating prodigality of communication. They 
knew that there was a book which taught them there was a time 
to be silent, as well as a time to speak. It did not shock the repub- 
licanism of these early senators of our country, to priat but eighty 
copies of their plan of confederation, and to bind themselves, then' 
secretary, and their printer, alike, to an inviolable silence as to 
the contents of the paper, and to lay all under an injunction to 
furnish no person with a copy. 



40 THE KEPUBLIOAN COURT. 

Had they pursued any otlier course, in all human probability 
the effort at confederation would have failed entirely : for there 
were conflicting interests to be reconciled, so diverse from each 
other, and habits of thought and action so very different, among 
the men there assembled, from the north and from the south, that 
these, added to the gloomy aspect of American affabs, would have 
been quite sufficient, had the pubhc been invited to partake in the 
discussion, effectually to close the door against the possibility of 
calmly and wisely reconciling differences. As it was, though the 
plan was submitted in July, 1TY6, it was not until after repeated 
deliberations that it was finally adopted, in ISTovember, XT'? 7. 

And what was the plan ? It was a league of sovereign states, 
and nothing more. We can but sketch an outline. It recognized 
no national existence of the colonies, as one great country, united 
under one permanent form of government. True, the thirteen states 
took the style and title of " the United States of America," but it 
was only to enter -"into a firm league of friendship Avith each 
other, for their defence, the security of their liberties, and their mu 
tual and general welfare ; binding themselves to assist each other 
against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of 
them, on account of rehgion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pre- 
tence whatever." And it was under no stronger bond than this 
voluntary agreement, that our fathers went through the war of the 
Revolution. 

As to the details, or mode of operation under this agreement, 
a few particulars will suffice. Each state expressly retained its 
sovereignty, in all respects, where it had not expressly delegated it 
to the Congress, and had its own chief magistrate and government. 
Each state raised its own troops, and appointed all its regimental 
officers, the whole to be clothed, armed and equipped, at the ex- 
pense (ofjthft United States. And when the Consjress had declared 



THE CONVENTION 41 

tlie proportions of taxes to be paid by tlie several states for prose- 
cuting the war, eacli by its own legislature was to lay and levy 
these taxes, thus merely declared by Congi^ess, which possessed no 
power of coercing their payment by distress or otherwise. 

As to the Congress, each state might send its delegates, not less 
than three nor more than seven, chosen annually, with a power of 
recall, at any time, and the right to substitute others : each state 
had one vote in the Congress. 

The powers of Congi-ess were such only as were necessary for 
carrying on the contest. Thus, to this body belonged exclusively^—^ 
the right to make war or peace, to receive ambassadors, to contract 
foreign alliances, to make treaties, provided that no commercial 
treaty should abridge the power of the state legislatures to im- 
pose upon foreigners such imposts and duties as their own people 
were subject to, or to enforce an absolute prohibition, if they saw 
fit, of the import or export of any species whatever of goods and 
commodities. They had power also to commission all field officers 
above the rank of colonel, to determine what number of land 
forces was necessary, and to make requisitions on each state for 
its proportion ; and they might issue letters of marque, and buHd 
and equip a navy. 

There were other powers, but this enumeration will serve to 
show the relative general position of the Congress and the states ; 
and it will be seen that in the two great elements for prosecuting a 
war, men and money, as to the first. Congress could do no more 
than fix the quota of a state and make a requisition on its author- 
ities, the disregard of which it could neither punish nor remedy ; 
and as to the last, Congress could indeed say what was the propor- 
tion of each state, but had no power to enforce its payment. The 
utmost that it could do for the practical accomplishment of objects 
the most important was to recommend and entreat, _ 
6 



42 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

However, with sucli a system, independence was achieved, Lut 
at sucli a cost of personal suffering, life, and individual pecuniary 
ruin, as, while it almost staggers credulity, should enshrine in our 
hearts' best affections, the memory of our patient and heroic 
fathers. And beside this cost of life and property to individuals, 
there was also a debt, due from the United States to creditors at 
home and abroad, which may safely be stated at not much less 
than fifty millions of dollars. The whole expense of the war had 
been about one hundred and thirty-five milhons. 

Impoverished, however, as was the country, the first subject 
that engaged the attention of the people, after emerging from the 
war, was the restoration of national credit, and the payment of 
this, to them, enornaous debt. Congress did its part, in recom- 
mending taxes, or duties, distributed in just proportion among all 
the states, but it was utterly powerless to levy the taxes, or en- 
force the payment of the duties. The insufficiency of the articles 
of confederation, as a system of government, became every day 
more and more apparent. There was no longer the pressure of a 
common danger, and the oppressive hand of tyranny had been 
shaken off ; and these were the causes which had given strength to 
the bonds of the federal union. The minds of the wisest and best 
men were filled with gloomy apprehensions and sad forebodings. 
The enemies of the Revolution, both at home and abroad, had pre- 
dicted that the success of America would prove her ruin, for that 
she was incapable of governing herself; and they were now se- 
cretly rejoicing in the prospect of a speedy fulfilment of their pre- 
dictions. Many true men almost despaired of the commonwealth. 
Washington, in 1784, wi'ote : " The disinclination of the individual 
states to yield competent powers to Congress for the federal go- 
vernment^ their unreasonable jealousy of that body, and of one an- 
other, and the disposition which seems to pervade each of being all- 



THE CONVENTION. 43 

wise and all-powerful within itself, will, if there be not a change in 
the system, be our downfall as a nation. ... I think we have oppos- 
ed Great Britain, and have arrived at the present state of peace 
and independency, to very little purpose, if we cannot conquer our 
own prejudices." In 1786, that able and eminently pure man, John 
Jay, thus expressed himself: "Our affairs seem to lead to some 
crisis, some revolution, something that I cannot foresee or conjec- 
tm-e. I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during tlie war. 
Then we had a fixed object, and though the means and time of ob- 
taining it were often problematical, yet I did firmly believe that 
justice was with us. The case is now altered. "We are going and 
doing wi'ong, and, therefore I look forward to evils and calamities, 
but without being able to guess at the instrument, nature, or mea- 
sure of them." Still, his trust in Providence made Mr. Jay hope- 
ful for his country. " That we shall again recover," he says, " and 
things again go well, I have no doubt. Such a variety of circum- 
stances would not, almost mii'aculously, have combined to liberate 
and make us a nation, for transient and unimportant purjDoses. I 
therefore beheve we are yet to become a great and respectable peo- 
ple ; but when, and how, only the spirit of prophecy can discern." 
While the clouds thus thickened in the pohtical atmosphere, 
a gleam of light began to break through the darkness. It came 
from Virginia, in the shape of a proposal, which her j)osition 
and her patriotism alike entitled her to make. In 1786 she ap- 
pointed a number of gentlemen to meet such commissioners as 
might be appointed by other states, to consider the subject of the 
trade and commerce of the confederacy, and adopt some uniform 
system which would tend to the common interest and permanent 
harmony of aU the states. Soon after her proposal, commissioners 
met at Annapolis, from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jer- 
sey and New York. Delegates had also been appointed by New 



44 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Hampsliire, Massacliusetts, Rliocle Island and Nortli Carolina, but 
they were not present. Nine states, however, had thus shown 
their sense of the necessity of a convention — the existence of a 
conviction in the public mind, that some steps must necessarily 
be taken, in concert, to avert the calamities which so obviously 
threatened the country. The commissioners who were present 
from the five states named above, were naturally unT\dlling to 
engage in the consideration of the important subject confided to 
them, with such a partial representation of the old confederacy, 
and they therefore drew up a report and address to all the states, 
recommending them to appoint commissioners, not merely to dehb- 
erate on the subject of commerce, but with enlarged powers, " to 
take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise 
such further provisions as should appear to them necessary, to 
render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the 
exigencies of the Union." This led to the appointment of delegates 
from every member of the old confederacy, except Rhode Island. 
These are the historic facts connected with the meetins^ of that 
august and dignified body of men who framed the CojN'Stitution 
OF THE United States of Ajmeeica. 

II. 

Leaving now, for a time, the beaten path of historic narrative, 
we digress to speak of the habits of the people, in that period, 
-and of the men who composed that memorable convention. 

The whole number of members in the convention which formed 
the constitution was fifty-five, and an assemblage more dignified 
never convened to transact the business of the United States. It 
embraced men who had distinguished themselves in the field, or iu 
the council, and, in some instances, in both. It embraced, too, all 
those peculiarities of thought and manner which characterized the 



THE CONVENTION. 45 

different portions of tlie country, from wliicli tlie members respec- 
tively came. The impress of local manners was plainly visible, giv- 
ing a fixed distinction to individuals. The Aan of New England, 
with strong practical common sense as the basis of his character, 
had the gravity and conscientiousness which had been a part of 
his Puritan education; and these were not unmingled with the 
shrewd worldly wisdom which had, of necessity, been acquired in 
a country where the earth yielded, with reluctance, even a small 
return to assiduous labor. Industry, and ingenuity in ovei'coming 
natural difficulties, had been part of his training; and if he cau- 
tiously considered before he made a contract, he was apt honestly 
to fulfil it to the letter when it was made. Liberal studies had 
never been neglected in the older portions of New England, and 
therefore she could furnish men of high intellectual culture. New 
England too, at that day, like other parts of our country, recognizr 
ed grades in society now unrecognized and indeed unknown. She 
had what might be called, in one sense, her acknowledged aristo- 
cracy, marked by a stateliness of manner, and a conformity to the 
rules of a prescribed courtesy in social intercom'se. This aristocracy 
was one of the remnants of the colonial relations from which she 
had just emerged. Thus, taking Massachusetts as the most finished 
type of contemporary manners, all who held office, all who possess- 
ed wealth, all of the clerical order, and all who had family connec- 
tions in England, were members of the gentry, or upper class of 
society, in the towns of any note ; while the gentry of the interior 
were those who owned large landed estates, held civil and military 
offices, and were representatives in the General Court. Many 
indeed of the classes here named had been driven from the colony 
by the war, but many also remained and were among the tried 
patriots of the Revolution. 

The habits of life, polish of manners, and style of dress were 



46 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

the badges of eminence Iby wliicli tlie aristocracy of New England 
asserted its outward superiority. If a gentleman went abroad, lie 
appeared in Ms wig, 'white stock, wliite satin embroidered vest, 
black satin small clothes with white silk stockings, and fine broad- 
cloth or velvet coat ; if at home, a velvet cap, sometimes with a 
fine hnen one beneath it, took the place of the wig ; while a gown, 
frequently of colored damask, hned with silk, was substituted for 
the coat, and the feet were covered with leather slippers of some 
fancy color. Visitors were received with hospitality and graceful 
courtesy. One custom prevailed, which, now, would greatly shock 
the New England sense of propriety : in most genteel families, a 
tankard of punch was prepared every morning, and visitors, during 
the day, were invited to ]3artake of it — ^the master of the house 
sometimes taking the vessel from the cooler in which it stood, 
and after drinking from it himself, handing it in person to the 
guests. 

There was a great deal of social intercourse in the class we are 
describing. The interchange of dinners and suppers was frequent ; 
at the first, the most fashionable hour for which was never later 
than three, the table groaned under its weight of provisions ; after 
the last, the customary evening amusement was cards. The law 
expressly prohibited dramatic entertainments, but they had con- 
certs, and at these, in Boston at least, private gentlemen sometimes 
were the performers, both vocal and instrumental — simply, how- 
ever, for the entertainment of theii' friends. Dancing was not among 
the things which the legislature had made mala proliibita^ and 
consequently there were assembhes for this recreation; but they 
were conducted with such severe attention to propriety, that no- 
thing short of the xinanimous concert of the gentlemen subscribei's 
would authorize admission. One of these assemblies would make 
an amusing spectacle at this time. The stately minuet, with all its 



THE CONVENTION. 47 

formal and tigli-bred courtesy, flourislied in tliose days, and was 
vai'ied only by tlie contre dance. CotiUions came in afterward, witli 
the French refugees from tlie West Indies. The style of the dress, 
too, for gentlemen, would at this day be likely to attract notice in 
the saloons of fashion ; but coats (of velvet or cloth) were literally 
of aU colors, not even excluding red, and sometimes the collar, ol 
velvet or cloth, was in studied contrast to that of the other parts. 

Marriages and funerals were most ceremoniously conducted. 
After the former, the newly married couple made nci bridal tour : 
and instead of the modern " at Tiome^'' and the single call of respect 
and congratulation, for four successive weeks the bride was expect 
ed to receive daily the visits of her friends. Public notice was given 
of funerals ; private invitations also were issued ; large attendance 
was expected, and long processions followed the dead to then* last 
homes. If one turned from these scenes of private and social hfe 
to look on public exhibitions, the same stately aii' of ceremonious 
dignity was stiU visible. If you entered the Supreme Judicial 
Court, in winter, there sat the judges, each in his robe of scarlet, 
faced with black velvet, somewhat like the costume of an Oxford 
doctor of laws ; and if it chanced to be summer, you found him in 
a full black silk gown. 

Leaving this hasty sketch of the fashions of that age, for which 
we are indebted to an eye-witness,'^' we pass on, if the friendly 
reader will take us as a guide, to speak familiarly of some of these 
New England men, whom we will imagine — ^for the Convention's 
sessions were not public — to be seated before us in that body. 
The place is not unfamiliar to some of the men thus assembled. 
The names of seven of them appear as signatures to a document 
by which they pledged their lives, fortunes and honor to the 
support of a declaration of independence, which was issued from 

* Sullivan : See his Familiar Letters on Public Characters. 



4S THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tills same cliamber. It was a bold declaration, made at a hazard- 
ous period, but the pledges of life, fortune, and honor, were nobly 
redeemed. Eleven years have passed since, and now they have 
once more come together in '■'• Indefpendence Hall^^ to deliberate 
on a constitution for a nation which owes its existence to their 
bravery and fidelity. Who can doubt that the spot awakens in 
them many strong emotions and stirring associations ? Our space 
forbids us to name all who are here, and we therefore beg that 
our omissions may not be construed into invidious distinctions 
which we have no design to make. 

And first, who is that individual, of such uncommonly handsome 
face and form, and, though seemingly but little more than thirty 
years of age, possessed of such remarkable dignity and grace of 
manner ? He has the appearance of one whom nature has stamped 
as a gentleman. It is Eufus King, who has been sent here from 
Newburyport, in Massachusetts. He displays great elevation, and 
indeed seriousness of demeanor, the latter seeming hardly consistent 
with his age, which is but thu^ty-three years. But he has other 
qualities, which are in harmony with his gravity. He is a man 
of much and severe thought, with an uncommonly vigoi-ous mind, 
highly cultivated by study. Young as he is, there is not an indi- 
vidual here who will speak with more dignity, or utter more solid 
sense. He is an orator, and his strong characteristics are concise- 
ness and force. He presents, indeed, a rare combination of personal 
and Intellectual endowments. He is a lawyer, but has served his 
country in the field as well as in the forum. In 1*7 '78 he was one 
of General Sullivan's aids, in the expedition to dislodge the British 
from Rhode Island. 

And who is that near him, of middling stature, and thin per- 
son ? His manner is courteous toward those who address him, and 
his whole appearance very gentlemanhke. That is Elbridge 



THE CONVENTION 49 

Gerry : lie also lias been sent liere by Massacliusetts. In all ques- 
tions of commerce and finance his wisdom and experience will be 
valued ; be has studied tbem carefully. He is one of those whose 
names are signed to the Declaration of Independence. 

But, mark that tall man, with the somewhat long visage, dark 
complexion, and blue eyes. His hair is loose, and combed over his 
forehead, and, as you may observe, has but little powder in it. 
The expression of his countenance indicates gentleness and kind- 
ness ; and he possesses both, yet is he also a man of inflexible firm- 
ness and adherence to principle. He neither possesses nor affects 
the polish of city life ; but not a man in all this assembly has a 
more unspotted private character ; and few, if any, have stronger 
minds, or judgments more calm and dispassionate. He is a fine spe- 
cimen of the old Puritan character, with its best traits. That is 
Caleb Strong, also from Massachusetts. 

Let us look for men from other parts of New England. Yon- 
der is Langdon, from New Hampshire. He has not had, like the 
Massachusetts representatives, the advantages of Harvard, nor has 
he mingled much, if at all, in the Boston circle of fashion ; yet he ia 
worthy of the place assigned him here. John Langdon is the son 
of a New Hampshire farmer, and having been bred to mercan- 
tile hfe, was employed in commercial transactions, until the con- 
test commenced with the mother country. At that period, he 
was a merchant in Portsmouth, and it was he, who, in concert with 
Sulhvan, and under his leadei^ship, in 1774 entered Fort William 
and Mary, and carried off all the military stores of the British. 
It was John Langdon, too, who in 1777 furnished means to call 
out and sustain the New Hampshii^e militia under Stark, after our 
loss of Ticonderoga. So we may thank him for the victory at Ben- 
nington. He has also been in the field himself, at the head of his 
Volunteers, in Vermont and Ehode Island. He is eminently prac- 
7 



50 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tical, witli sterling good sense, is social in his habits, and in his 
manners easy, unaffected, and pleasing. He was the agent in New- 
Hampshire of the Continental Congress, and contracted for build- 
ing several pubhc ships of war. Among all before us there is not 
one more thoroughly republican in his feelings and tendencies than 
John Langdon. 

There is but one other portion of New England represented 
here, for it is understood Rhode Island has sent no delegates. There 
are the men from Connecticut, three hi number : not far from the 
Massachusetts delegation. Fii'st, we will speak of that remarkable 
self-made statesman and jurist, Roger Sherman ; he is one of those 
who fearlessly put their names to the Declaration of Independence, 
after acting as members of the committee appointed to prepare it. 
That tall, erect, well-proportioned gentleman is he. His complexion 
is very fair, and his countenance manly and agreeable, though some- 
what grave. Observe too his dress, remarkable for its plainness, 
yet as remarkable for its neatness. He is consistently religious, and 
has all the piety of the best Puritan without any of the acerbity 
which sometimes acconipanies it. He is indeed an extraordinary 
man, or he would not be where we now see him. He is the son of 
a plain Massachusetts farmer, and never had any other advantages 
of education, m his youth, than such as a common township school 
could afford. He is a striking illustration of the truth that every 
one must, in a great degree, educate himself. He was a shoe- 
maker, and worked at his trade, during several years ; but he was 
scarce ever seated at his work unless with some book lying open 
before him. His thirst for knowledge was intense. He never, pro- 
bably, knew an idle hour. At the age of twenty-two he went to 
Connecticut, carrying his tools on his back. He is now forty-six 
years old, has been at the bar several years, is learned in his pro- 
fession, and for some years has been a judge of the highest court in 



THE CONVENTION. 51 

Connecticut. He lias done everytliuig for himself. His reading 
lias been extensive and varied, and few, if any, here, are better in- 
formed than lie is. He is possessed in an eminent degree of two 
striking characteristics: he has great practical wisdom, and a 
knowledge of human nature that seems almost intuitive. He is no 
orator, and yet not a speaker in the convention is more effective ; 
the basis of his power is found, first, in the thorough conviction of 
his integrity : his countrymen are satisfied that he is a good man^ 
a real patriot, with no little or sinister or personal ends in view ; 
next, he addresses the reason, with arguments, logically arrayed, so 
clear, so plain, so forcible, that, as they have convinced him, they 
carry conviction to others who are dispassionate. One would 
scarce believe, from such a descrijDtion, that by nature he possesses 
warm and excitable feelings ; yet such is the fact ; he has, however, 
so learned to control his passions, that he is habitually calm, sedate, 
and self-governed, mild and agreeable in society, and evinces an en- 
larged benevolence towards all mankind. There is not here a 
more remarkable nor a better man than Roger Sherman. 

And near him you see Oliver Ellsworth. He, too, belongs tOr 
the bar. His most striking quahties of mind are extraordinary 
quickness of perception united to the close and clear reasoning of 
an accomplished logician. He is ardent as a speaker and often elo- 
quent. He possesses great purity of personal character, and in 
private life no one is more beloved for his virtues. He is conspic- 
uous too for a manly independence of thought, perfect fearlessness 
in expressing what he thinks, and great firmness in maintaining it. 
Remarkable for his frankness, he neither knows nor wishes to know 
the arts of cunning^ that ready weapon of little minds. No man 
is more accessible : easy and courteous in his manners, he exhibits 
in his intercourse with all who approach him that best species of 
good breeding, the natm-al courtesy of a man possessed of kindly 



52 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

feelings and great good sense. He is one of the most unassuming 
individuals here ; and in the simplicity of his dress, equipage, and 
mode of living, he furnishes a good example of a virtuous and con- 
sistent republican. But though an economist in personal expendi- 
ture, he is a liberal and generous contributor to all useful and be- 
nevolent plans to help his fellow men. In short, he is a Christian 
gentleman. 

Are there any other New England men here ? a few ; but your 
attention will be called to but one of them, "William Samuel John- 
son, also from Connecticut, and, with the exception of Rufus King, 
probably the only New England Episcopalian in the house : for the 
prevailing form of rehgion in New England is Congregationahsm. 
He is the eldest son of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson who was the 
first president of King's College, as it was called, in New York. 
This gentleman, however, is not a divine, but a lawyer — an emi- 
nent one — and an orator. But his attainments are not merely pro- 
fessional; he is a man of science and literature. He resided in 
England, as the agent of the colony of Connecticut, and was there 
the associate and companion of the learned. Though differing in 
his political views from the literary colossus. Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
(for he is thoroughly an American,) yet he was intimate with his 
celebrated namesake, and mingled in the literary circle of which 
he was the acknowledged chief He is a highly accomplished, in- 
telligent, and honorable man, and well worthy of a place in such 
an assembly as this. 

New England, you see, has sent here some of the best of her 
sons. She has, no doubt, as worthy ones at home, but, it may be 
questioned whether she has any worthier. The business which has 
brought them here is so very important, that the selection has 
been made with reference to the work to be done, and New Eng- 
land need not be ashamed to point to her representatives. They 



THE CONVENTION. 5S 

Lave proved themselves to be men, at liome, "before tliis, or the 
practical strong common sense of their countrymen would never 
have placed them here ; the arts of the demagogue, the tricks of 
unscrupulous j)ohtical profligacy, and the senseless shouts of an ig- 
norant and corrupt favoritism, had nothing to do with their elec- 
tion. They are in this convention, simply because they were well 
known by their every-day associates, to be " good men and true." 
God grant it may ever be so with the servants of the Repubhc ! 

Now let us look to some of the delegates from the Middle 
States. First, there stands, from New York, Alexander Hamilton. 
That is he, with such a remarkably expressive face. His age is about 
thirty. You observe that he is one of the smallest men here : in- 
deed under the middle size, and thin in person, but remarkably 
erect and dignified. His hair is turned back from his foreheacj, pow- 
dered, and collected in a club behind. Mark the fairness of his 
complexion and his rosy cheeks. "VVatch the play of his singularly 
expressive countenance : in repose, it seems grave and thoughtful ; 
but see him when spoken to, and instantly all is lighted up with 
intelligent vivacity, and around his lips plays a smile of extraordi* 
nary sweetness. It is impossible to look at his features and not see 
that they are ineffaceably stamped by the divine hand with the im- 
press of genius. His is indeed a mind of immense grasp, and un- 
limited original resources. Whether he speaks or writes he is equal- 
ly great. He can probably endure more unremitted and intense 
mental labor than any man in this body. So rapid are his percep- 
tions, and at the same time so clear, that he seems sometimes to 
reach his conclusions by a species of intuition. He possesses in a 
wonderful degree that most unfailing mark of the highest order of 
intellect, the comprehensiveness of view which leads to accurate 
generalization. He catches the principle involved in a discussion, 
as if by instinct, and adberes rigidly to that, quite sure that there- 



54 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

by, the details are certain to be riglit. Anotlier mark of eminent 
genius is continually exhibiting itself in the striking originality 
of his views. There is nothing commonplace about his mind. 
Among great men, any where, Alexander Hamilton would be felt 
to be great. As an individual, he is a frank, amiable, and high- 
minded gentleman, who inspires his friends with the warmest per- 
sonal attachment, while he rarely, if ever, fails to make his enemies 
both hate and fear him. Perhaps, however, instead of this sketch, 
it had been enough, in the beginning, simply to say that he once 
lived with General Washington, and secured Ms affection and con- 
fidence. He is married to a daughter of General Schuyler, and his 
wife is one of the most agreeable women in the city. 

New Jersey has a very able representative: it is that gen- 
tleman, so plain and simple in his dress and manners — ^William 
Livingston. Not a man here abhors monarchical government 
more than he. He is one of the most forcible and elegant writers 
in this assembly, and his pen has been often used in vindicating 
the rights of his countrymen ; indeed, it is said that the influence 
of his writings did much to arouse the militia of New'Jersey to the 
feeling which caused them to rally, with such promptitude, when 
any alarm called the people to array themselves against the enemy. 
The British hated him most cordially,* and would have been de- 

* On one occasion — the twenty-eighth of February, Vll^ — an attempt ^as made to capture him 
at his house. A party of British troops from New York landed at Elizabethtown Point, pro- 
ceeded to Liberty Hall (as his residence was named), and breaking in its doors, at midnight, cried 
out for the " damned Governor! " Livingston had, however, left home several hours before, and 
was at this time sleeping at a friend's house, several miles away. After ascertaining his absence, 
the ofiieer in command of the party demanded his papers. All his recent con-espondence with 
Washington, Congress, and the state officers, was in a small box, in the parlor. One of his 
daughters, however, with great presence of mind appealed to the officer, as a gentleman and a 
soldier, representing that the box contained her private property, and promising that if it were 
protected she would show him what he wished. A guard being placed over it, the men were 
led into the library, where they filled their foraging bags with old law papers, of no value. 
After many menaces of violence, and of setting fire to the house, they finally departed, without 
securing the only plunder which would have rewarded their efforts. 







-/< 



'■' / / 



.^^r^/7^^4 



THE CONVENTION. 55 

liglited to get liim in their clutclies. He handled them so merci- 
lessly in his essays, and cut them so sharply with his invective 
and wit, that they would gladly have put him out of the way. 
He has great powers of satire, and is very fearless. He is proha- 
bly one of the best classical scholars in this body, and a very good 
lawyer. His mind is strong and comprehensive, and, (an unusual 
combination,) he adds to its strength a brilliant imagination. He 
is a poet of no mean abilities, and his literary taste, generally, is 
highly cultivated and refined. He is thoroughly repubhcan in 
politics. 

As the place of meeting is her own metropohs, Pennsylvania has 
more representatives here than any other of the states. She has 
no less than eight : Yii'ginia, next to her in numbers, has seven. 
We can only speak of a few of the Pennsylvania delegation. 
There is the old philosopher, whom every body in Philadelphia 
knows, Benjamin Franklin. He is now eighty-one years of age, 
and, like Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, is a self-made man. Like 
Sherman, too, he has a most accurate knowledge of human nature. 
His worldly wisdom is probably not surpassed by that of any maii 
in America. He is no speaker ; indeed, very seldom attempts to 
speak, and when he does, disposes of the question before him with 
wondei'ful brevity ; sometimes, in fact, by a single sentence. He 
never wastes words. He has a most happy talent of illustrating, by 
an allegory, or reasoning, by means of a story, the application of 
which he leaves to his hearers. He is always cool and self-possess- 
ed. The character of his mind, addicted to philosophical research, 
and the incidents of his earlier life, have combined to make him 
eminently an utilitarian. He considers all questions, whether of 
philosophy or pohtics, with reference to their practical bearing and 
effect. Hence his natural tendency is thought, by some, to lean too 
much to considerations of mere expediency^ in his acts as a states- 



56 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT. 

man. But lie is by no means indifferent to great principles involv- 
ed, and has sliown, too, the firmness with which he can assert them, 
regardless of all consequences. As a philosopher, he commands, 
and justly, the admiration and respect of the whole world. What 
a crowd of thoughts must this occasion bring to the old man's 
mind ! He fii'st visited this city, a friendless printer's boy, with- 
out an acquaintance or a dollar ; and now he is one of the great 
and trusted sons of the commonwealth. His first visit to London, 
where Sir William Keith let him go, at the age of eighteen, without 
the promised letters of recommendation, and where, by the exer- 
cise of his craft, he sustained himself, a poor and unknown Amer- 
ican youth ; his subsequent visit as the agent of Pennsylvania ; his 
scientific renown, to which he had fairly, and unaided, fought his 
way, attested by the doctorate conferred upon him both in Edin- 
burgh and Oxford ; his examination at the bar of the House of 
Commons, on the repeal of the Stamp Act ; and, above all, that 
memorable period in IT 83, when, as one of the representatives of 
the United States, he signed the definitive treaty of peace which 
placed his country among the independent nations ! And, in this 
hall, he must experience strange and mingled emotions. It was here 
that, on the fom'th of July, lYTG, when all looked dark enough, 
and his country had no ally but our Father in heaven, he put his 
name to a document which, renouncing allegiance to the British 
crown, perilled all he had, even life itself, upon the unknown issue ; 
and now, in this same place, he has come to assist in the founda- 
tion of a government which, eleven years ago, he solemnly declared 
had a right to be free and independent. He is one of the oldest, 
if not the oldest, of the members of this body ; he has i3assed 
through more strange vicissitudes than any of his present asso- 
ciates, and as he nears the grave, this must be, for him, a proud 
and deeply interesting moment. 



THE CONVENTION. 57 

There also are Robert and Gouverneur Morris, both from Penn- 
sylvania, though of different families. Robert Morris was born in 
England, and came to America at the age of thirteen. He was 
bred to mercantile pursuits, and his financial ability contributed 
very largely to the successful issue of the revolution. Indeed, it 
may be doubted whether, but for him, we should have been able 
to continue the struggle. He often pledged his personal credit, 
which was great, to an almost incredible amount, for the purpose 
of raising means to carry on the war. One instance — and that an 
important one, for it put an end to the war — ^may suffice to illus- 
trate this. General Washington, who had contemplated the cap- 
ture of New York, was compelled by circumstances, suddenly and 
unexpectedly, to change his plans entirely, and, secretly, to deter- 
mine raj)idly to turn his arms against Cornwallis, at the South. 
He sent for Robert Morris, who candidly informed him that he had 
no public money, but would be obliged to resort solely to his per- 
sonal credit. Nearly every thing was supplied by Morris ; he fm*- 
nished from seventy to eighty pieces of battering cannon, and one 
hundi'ed of field artillery, with the necessary ammunition and other,, 
appurtenances, and, by the end of three or four weeks from the 
time of his interview with Washington, all had reached the gen- 
eral. And this, with the expense of provision and the means of 
paying the troops, was accomplished solely on the personal credit 
of Robert Morris, who issued his own promissory notes for the 
enormous amount of one million four hundred thousand dollars, 
every cent of which was duly paid ; and thus was Washington en- 
abled to force Cornwallis to a surrender at Yorktown. Morris's 
financial abilities are of the very first order, and these, added to his 
character for integrity, enabled him to render services, which, if 
less conspicuous than those of the brave men who were actually in 
arms, were not less indispensable to the achievement of indepen- 



58 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

dence. He, too, was one of tliose who, in this hall, eleven years 
ago, put his name to the declaration of independence, so that, you 
see, he is well entitled to be here. 

Gouverneur Morris is the youngest son of Lewis Morris, and was 
born near New York. He was an assistant to Robert Morris in 
the superintendence of the finances, and, after the war, was asso- 
ciated with him in commercial business. His knowledge is various, 
his conversation copious and eloquent, and he will, doubtless, make 
a useful member. 

Yonder you may see a gentleman, of the middle size, erect in 
his person, and of fair complexion. His features are strongly marked 
with intelligence and benevolence, but there may also be seen in 
them resolution and firmness. That is George Clymer, who, on 
behalf of Pennsylvania, was one of the immortal company of the 
"signers." He is a man of warm feelings, very ardent in his af- 
fections, and the delight of the social circle. He writes with great 
care and accuracy, but seldom addresses a public assembly ; he is 
too modest and diffident ; but on the occasions when a sense of duty 
leads him to speak, he is listened to with great respect and atten- 
tion. His speeches are always short and to the purpose. His friends 
know and appreciate, far better than he does himself, the superior- 
ity of his talents. He never has sought popularity, or courted pre- 
ferment. There is a beautiful simplicity and frank honesty in his 
character. He has some traits, which, it were to be wished, were 
more general. George Clymer was never heard to speak ill of the 
absent, nor will he endeavor to traduce men's characters ; and he 
is most punctilious and exact in fulfilling any promise he makes, 
whether in a great matter or a small one. He is an earnest pro- 
moter of every scheme for the improvement of his country, in sci- 
ence, agriculture, polite learning, the fine arts, or objects of mere 
utility. He is a student and thinker, has a very pure heart, and no 



THE CONVENTION. 59 

man present is more ready to sacrifice liimself and all lie lias, for 
tlie sake of the country. 

There is one other Pennsylvanian -whom I must point out to 
you. I mean Thomas Mifflin. He is of Quaker parentage, and his 
ardor of feeling and patriotism, prompting him to engage person- 
ally in the revolutionary struggle, led that peaceful society to 
" read him out of meeting." On the organization of the continental 
army in ITT 5, he took the office of quarter-master general, and thus 
shut himself out of the society of " Friends." They but adhered 
consistently enough to their avowed principles, and he adhered 
with equal constancy to his. His temperament is warm, his dispo- 
sition sanguine and his habits active. Hence it may he that he has. 
not always duly appreciated the coolness and caution of a calmer 
temperament. Some have supposed that he once thought Wash- 
ington did not move quite fast enough ; if he did, it probably re- 
sulted from his own ardent temperament, and not from personal 
ill-will to the Commander-in-Chief. He was the President of Con- 
gress, at Annapolis, when Washington resigned his office, and the 
addi'ess he made in response to that of the General, did honor both 
to his head and heart, and bore ample testimony to his sense of the 
surpassing merits of the great man whom he was addressing. Like 
most persons of impetuous feeling, he was probably taught by age, 
in each successive year of its progress, more and more to appreciate 
the sober calmness of dehberation before action. But no one 
doubts the patriotism or courage of Major General Mifflin. 

From Delaware, there is John Dickinson, a lawyer, a part of 
whose professional training was in the Temple, in London. He is 
an admirable writer, and his pen was employed in behalf of the 
colonies as far back as 1T65. He is the author of the celebrated 
"Farmer's Letters," written in 1767 and 1T68; and he wrote also 
some of the most important state papers issued by the Congress of 



60 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

1774 and those immediately succeeding : the addi^ess to the inha- 
bitants of Quebec, the first petition to the king, the address to 
the armies, the second petition to the king, and the address to 
the several states, are all from his pen. It may seem strange that, 
having afforded such undoubted evidences of patriotism, he should 
have opposed, in the Congress of 1776, the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. It was simply however on the ground of its impohcy, at 
that particular time. lie wished the terms of the confederation 
to be settled, and foreign assistance to be certainly secured, before 
the decisive step of a declaration should be made. But within a 
few days after it was made, notwithstanding his private opinion of 
its impolicy, he was found marching with the army to sustain it in 
the field ; and it is curious that he, who had openly in the Con- 
gress of 1776 opposed the measure, was the only member of that 
body who immediately marched to face the enemy. His constitu- 
ents, nevertheless, were dissatisfied with his congressional vote, and 
another was elected in his place. This, however, could not destroy 
his patriotism, for in 1777 he was serving, as a private, under Cap- 
tain Lewis, with his musket on his shoulder, in the movements 
against the British who had then landed at the head of the Elk 
Eiver. In 1779 he was unanimously sent back to Congi-ess. You 
perceive that his person is commanding, and his countenance a 
fine one. Of his abihties no one doubts : he has a highly culti- 
vated mind, refined taste, a" very large fund of general knowledge, 
and an habitual eloquence, with polished elegance of manners. 
He is a man who has ever been ready to make any sacrifice for his 
country. 

His colleague is that tall and carefully dressed gentleman, 
George Read, who, like Dickinson, thought the Declaration of In- 
dependence premature, yet did not dechne, when the Congress had 
adopted it, to put his name to it. He too is a lawyer, and a true 



THE CONVENTION. 61 

patriot, of most estimable private cliaracter. No one more steadily 
resisted tlian lie did the encroacliments of tyranny. 

III. 

Befoee we call attention to individual southern members it 
may be well, as with reference to New England, rapidly to advert 
to some of the leading features which mark the state of society in 
the southern states. The eastern, middle, and southern colonies, 
though all for the most part settled by Englishmen, had still 
distinctive features, by which each section, from the beginning, was 
characterized. For the South, let Vii^ginia and South CaroHna 
serve as illustrations ; with shght modifications the picture of the 
first is that of Maryland, while that of the last is apphcable to the 
eastern part of North Carolina and to Georgia. 

Virginia had long possessed an aristocracy. From an early pe- 
riod of her settlement, cuxumstances had contributed to its creation, 
and they were such as made its growth unavoidable. The early 
emigrants who came to the colony, unlike those who settled in New 
England, were prompted by no spirit of disaffection towards the 
mother country. They not only brought with them all the feel- 
ings and habits of England, but they clung to them, from a dehbe- 
rate preference. The monarchy and the church of England were 
never objects of their dislike. The fertility and vast extent of the 
lands lying upon the numerous streams of Virginia, necessarily 
drew attention to agriculture, which, in the absence of roads, could 
find no means of transport save by the watercourses. Hence the 
original settlements were almost entirely agricultural; clearings 
were made and plantations settled on the rivers, and no towns of 
any importance were built. Nor was it difficult for the more 
shrewd, who possessed even small means, to become large landed 
proprietors. Every planter who, at his own charge, transported 
one immigrant, could claim therefor fifty acres of land; so that 



b2 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

from an early period in lier colonial liistory, Vii'ginia possessed a 
body of proprietors, OTVTiing very large tracts of land. This natu- 
rally scattered tlie population over an extensive surface, and retard- 
ed the growth of towns. 

In the second or thii^l generation, under the English law of de- 
scent, these cultivated lands, passing from sire to eldest son, had 
created a class of " first families," and the education of the country 
was confined to this class. There were no schools for the masses 
of the people ; indeed many of them were no better than serfs, for 
at one period Virginia was made a penal colony : convicts were 
sent over and sold, for a time, to the proprietors, and a regular sys- 
tem of kidnapping prevailed in some of the ports of England, 
which consigned to temporary servitude in America men who had 
never been convicts at home. A broad line of distinction was 
therefore early di^awn between the large proprietors and the com- 
mon people. The planter had his tenants and serfs, over whom he 
presided with a species of modern feudal sovereignty. The emigra- 
tion of the cavaliers, from England, in the days of Cromwell, did 
not tend to diminish this landed aristocracy; and though, some- 
times, men of strong natural abilities emerged from theii' position 
in the inferior classes, and became perhaps proprietors themselves, 
yet was the picture, for the most part, such as we have sketched, 
of a community di^^.ded into two great classes at the extremes of 
the civilized social state, with few or no intermediate or middle 
men, to form a class between them. The offices of the country 
were, of course, in the hands of the aristocracy, which took very 
good care to retain them there, and the "peasantry," as they would 
have been called in England, or working men, could do little else 
but attach themselves, somewhat as retainers, to the fortunes of 
theii* respective patrons,. This indirect recognition of the aristo- 
cracy, gave to it its chief element of strength ; for as the existence 



THE CONVENTION. 63 

of an aristocratic class in society is pui-ely conventional, having no 
natural foundation, it is obvious that if the people do not choose 
to recognize it, it cannot long exist at all. Perhaps in the then state 
of the Virginia population, it was best that it should be so. The 
proprietors possessed the intelligence necessary to manage affaii^s, 
and treated their humbler dependants, (even when sold to them as 
convicts,) with great Idndness, and regard to their personal com- 
fort. They by no means considered them as slaves, but as long as 
the people left them in the undisputed possession of an acknowledg- 
ed superiority and right to direct affairs, they in turn left them to 
entertain, unchecked, such ideas of freedom and independence as 
were likely to develope themselves in strong men, who at times lux- 
uriated in the wild Hberty of nature in the wilderness, untrammel- 
led by the artificial restraints imposed by necessity in an older state 
of society, and in the narrow limits of a densely crowded popula- 
tion. There was, hence, both among the rich and poor, a deeply 
seated love of freedom and a spirit of independence. 

The spiiit of hospitahty, too, from the very beginning, has been 
boundless in Virginia, and, indeed, throughout all the old southern 
states. Necessity may be said to have contributed somewhat to 
make it so; the settlements frequently were quite remote from 
each other, and the traveller often could find no shelter at night, 
unless he obtained it under the roof of the friendly planter, who 
would have been pained at the suspicion that he either expected 
or desired pecuniary remuneration. 

It is quite easy to see how, under a system such as this, even 
with all its unavoidable imperfections, some of the noblest traits of 
human character would develope themselves. On the part of the 
wealthy, generosity, kindness, guidance, and support, were constant- 
ly called forth for the benefit of those below them in condition. Ac- 
customed, too, to direct, and often to command, (for the legitimate 



b4 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

power of tlie country was in tlieir hands,) they grew up, genera- 
tion after generation, with a proud spirit of personal independence, 
on which was naturally engrafted a high sense of honor. ' A Vir- 
ginian or Maryland gentleman of the olden time, seated on do- 
mains that spread over hundreds of acres, and living in what was 
very like a baronial state, and educated, perhaps, in Europe, pol- 
ished in manners, hospitable, generous, cordial, manly, " with high 
thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy," was a noble specimen of 
men. When the revolution commenced, they to whom this de- 
scription would apply, soon showed themselves. 

If we turn further south, the picture, in many of its aspects, is 
still the same. In the old towns at the east, and on the shores 
of North Carolina, were men who in some instances were large pro- 
prietors, many of them educated and trained to the learned profes- 
sions abroad, filling all the important offices of the colony, as high- 
toned and independent as any men on the continent. To these the 
common people had long been used to look with deference and re- 
sj)ect ; and these swayed pubhc opinion in the East. In a broad 
belt, at the West, between the Catawba and Yadkin rivers, were a 
sturdy and brave race of yeomen, known as the " Scotch Irish " 
Presbyterians, lovers of liberty, from their very cradles, who looked 
up to their spiritual teachers and the leading laymen of the coun- 
try for direction. These leaders were men of cultivated minds. 
Frankness and fearlessness were the characteristics of these brave 
yeomen. When the revolution commenced, no men answered 
more promptly at the first call of their leaders than the common 
people of North Carolina ; no leaders sounded the alarm and ut- 
tered the call sooner ; and nowhere, throughout the colonies, did 
the leaders more completely possess the confidence of the people, 
or more perfectly control and sway their actions. 

In South Carolina, it was very much the custom to educate the 



THE CONVENTION. 65 

sons of tlie wealthy at tlie Englisli universities ; and thoso^ who 
filled the liberal professions had, in many instances, studied abrjad 
The aristocracy was in some parts of South Carolina as clearly de- 
fined as in Virginia. The same hospitality, generosity, and high 
sense of honor were also found among the affluent and the educated. 
In casting his eyes over the names belonging to this colony,, one is 
struck with the large number evidently French. These belong to 
those who descended from the Huguenots, driven out of France by 
the superlative folly of Louis XIV. in revoking the edict of Nantes. 
Never was an act of greater madness committed by a bigoted ruler, 
and never was there one which more eflTectuaUy wrought its own 
temporal punishment. The infuriated monarch enriched almost 
every civilized state in Europe at his own expense, and impover- 
ished France by the loss of millions in trade, and thousands of her 
best population. Some came to America, and the largest body of 
them found a home in South Carolina. Here, as in every other 
land where they found an asylum, they more than repaid the bene- 
volence which sheltered them, by their piety, their skill, and their 
industry. The revolution shows many South Carolinian Huguenot 
names. They were all patriots in that desperate struggle. 

It will readily be seen from this sketch that, while the North 
and South alike were ready to peril all for freedom, and while from 
both regions there were many specimens of " nature's noblemen," 
who instinctively understood each other on a very brief acquaint- 
ance, and whose sympathies were the same in thought and action; 
yet were there several particulars in which some differences of na- 
tional or rather provincial character were perceptible in the respec- 
tive inhabitants of these two regions. The northern, man was 
cool and cautious, the southern ardent and impulsive ; both were 
brave, but if, at any time, either was rash, it was more likely to be 
the son of the South. The northern man parted freely with his 



C6 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

money for his country's good, but first requii^ed tliat lie sliould be 
specifically informed for wliat precise purpose it was needed, and 
calculated exactly liow mucli would suffice ; tlie southron, more 
prodigal, gave to his country the sum that was named, and unless 
his suspicions were aroused, asked no questions either as to its ap- 
propriation or its amount. If the fate of war had reduced the colo- 
nies to submission, it would have been but temporarily, either in the 
North or South : but the latter would have been probably involv- 
ed in frequent rebellions, while the former would have discreetly 
kept quiet, until it had made all things ready and saw the favor- 
able time arrive, and then would have rebelled in the hope and 
expectation that it would be once for all. 

The New England man thought but little of the gauds and va- 
nities of the world : he was a sober Puritan ; the southron valued 
the refinements of pohshed life, had no particular objection to a 
certain amount of personal display, prided himself somewhat on 
the graceful courtesy of his outward bearing, and, in his worship, 
preferred the more imposing ceremonial of the English ritual. His 
countrymen, in Maryland, Virginia, and both the Carohnas, had 
known the Church of England as the established and prevailing 
religion ; for the most part, they had been trained in it ; and di- 
vesting it of its estahlislied character, they preferred to worship 
according to its formularies. 

But these hints must suffice to indicate the differences in char- 
acter among the inhabitants of the different colonies. It was wisely 
ordered that they should exist ; and in the general fusion of inter- 
ests, feelings, and manners, they all perhaps proved beneficial. 

Let us go back to the Convention. 

We have from Maryland, Luther Martin, a lawyer of great and 
commanding powers. And here too is John Mercer, a soldier of the 
revolution, deservedly respected by his countrymen ; and McHenry 



THE CONVENTION. 67 

is also here. But without meaning to detract from the merits of 
these, we will pass on, to look at one to whom they are quite 
willing, we may be sure, to yield precedence. There is George 
Washington, of Virginia. He is the central attractive figure, and 
wields a mighty moral influence over these statesmen, not un- 
like in its effects that which he exercised over the officers of his 
army. He binds them into union. But to suppose that you re- 
quire any sketch of either his person or his deeds, is to imply 
a doubt of your being an American. George Washington's 
countrymen from the children upward, all know who he is, and 
what he has done. His is a name in history, which good and 
brave men, throughout the world, will not let die. A common 
humanity will be too proud of it ever to let it perish. He is one 
of the few whom God has made to be men for all time. We love 
and honor him now ; he will be more honored, more venerated by 
future generations. We are too near him to mark the admirable 
and exquisitely adjusted features of his character ; posterity, stand- 
ing at a greater distance, will see the harmonious and massive 
grandeur of his magnificent and finely developed proportions. We 
can only belittle him by praising him as we would another man. 
It becomes an American to point merely to his deeds, and be silent. 
Th^. world will do the rest. 

That middle-sized, venerable looking person, whom you see, is 
George Wythe. He is now sixty-one years old, and in many re- 
spects a remarkable man. His father was a farmer. His mother 
was a woman of great strength of mind, and of attainments very 
unusual in her sex ; she was an excellent Latin scholar, and is said 
even to have spoken that language fluently ; she taught it to her 
son ; but in several other respects his education was somewhat 
neglected. He lost his parents before he was a man, and with the 
thoughtlessness of youth, uncontrolled by authority, rushed madly 



68 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

onward in a career of folly and dissipation. The force of his cHar 
acter, however, may be appreciated from the fact that he did, at 
last, what very few under similar circumstances would or could 
have done. After nine years of dissipation, he reformed, and be- 
came a man of exemplary sobriety and steadiness. Lamenting 
most deej^ly the time iiTecoverably lost by his foEy and sin, and 
deploring, at that late period, the want of that learning which he 
might have acquired during those misspent years, he resolved to 
redeem the future, and from that hour devoted himself with un- 
tiring industry to study. He taught himself Greek, and choosing 
the profession of jurisprudence, became profoundly versed in both 
the common and civil law, and thoroughly learned in the statute 
law of both Great Britain and Virginia. No longer a thoughtless, 
dissipated youth, he was respected, as a wise, sedate, and upright 
man, of marked abihty, and eminently worthy of the confidence of 
his countrymen ; nor was it long before he stood at the very head 
of the Virginia bar. When the troubles with the mother coun- 
try first began, he stood forth boldly, and encouraged, if indeed 
he did not originate, the first movements of opposition in Virginia. 
He was the fearless champion of liberty, and was among the earli- 
est to enrol himself in the ranks of her volunteers. His influence 
and example undoubtedly did very much to inspire the people. 
Before the war actually commenced he was a member of the Vir- 
ginia legislature, and speaker of that body. He was sent in 1775 
to the Congress at Philadelphia, and was one of those who, in 
1776, put their names to the Declaration of Independence. He is 
now Chancellor of Virginia, and it may be doubted whether, in this 
house, there is a purer or a wiser man. His now long continued 
habits of strict temperance and regularity of life have given him, 
as you see, a healthy old age, and one cannot look without linger- 
ing on his manly and expressive features. 




i 




;A:vMISS MIi\,^;,U:.^.J'-U^A^J 9 



THE CONVENTION. 69 

He is perfectly unaffected and simple in his manners, as modest 
as lie is learned, and singularly disinterested. If you should liear 
liim speak, you would be struck by bis logical arrangement, bis 
cbaste language, and bis easy elocution. H^ is also exceedingly 
courteous in debate. He is not, bowever, wbat would be termed a 
brilliant man. His mind indeed is of very bigb order, but not tbe 
most rapid in seizing upon tbe prominent points of a subject. La- 
bor bas made bim wbat be is. Allow bim time for consideration, 
and tben will appear bis profound penetration, bis well-bnked 
logic, and bis demonstrated conclusion. 

And bere is anotber delegate from Vu'ginia. I cannot speak 
of all, but may not pass unnoticed James Madison. He is now 
tbirty-seven years old, and bas been trained as a lawyer by Cban- 
cellor Wytbe. He possesses fine talents, and is remarkable for bis 
close reasoning. Tbougb younger tban many bere, be is, notwitb- 
standing, a wortby companion to tbem, for bis views and attain- 
ments are mucb in advance of bis years. He was always a tbinker, 
and is a bold and forcible speaker. K tbere be any one bere of 
wbom I would say, " be never was a loy^'' I tbink it would -be Mr. 
Madison. Virginia considers bim one of ber ornaments, and is 
justly proud of bim. 

Let us see wbom we bave bere from Nortb Carolina. Tbere 
are two of tbat delegation of wbom we will speak. First, tbere is 
WiQiam Ricbardson Davie. Tall ia person and well formed, be is 
possessed, as you perceive, of features remarkably bandsome, and 
strikingly expressive of bis manly nature. His voice is melodious, 
bis manner dignified, and be is a very accomplished orator. He 
bas been a bard student, and bis influence is great in Nortb Caro- 
bna. He deserves all tbat be possesses, for be is one of tbe tried 
patriots of tbat state, tbougb not a native. He was born in Eng- 
land, and brought to this country by his father at a very early age. 



70 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

He had a maternal uncle, tlie Eev. William Eichardson, who was 
one of the Presbyterian clergy in that " Scotch Irish " settlement 
of which we have spoken as existing in North Carohna. This nn- 
cle had no childi^en, and adopted his nephew, who afterward inher- 
ited his estate. He was prepared for college in North Carolina, 
and afterwards finished his studies at Princeton. Here his patriot- 
ism first broke into action. He was one of that party of stu- 
dents who left coUege, with the consent of its head, Dr. "VVither- 
spoon, and served as a volunteer, near New York, in the summer of 
lYYC. In the autumn of that year he took his bachelor's degree, 
and returned home to study law. But the times were too stirring 
to allow repose to such a temperament as his. In 1777 he joined 
the army, and was ere long a major in Pulaski's legion of cavalry. 
From this time onward he was in service until the close of the 
war, and shared in most of the battles in the western part of the 
Carolinas. When, after the defeat of Gates, Cornwallis attempted 
to overrun North Carolina, it was Davie, with his troops, who inter- 
posed between the British and our retreating forces, and kept the 
former at bay, compelling them at last to retreat to South Carolina. 
Three times, at the village of Charlotte, in Mecklenburg County, 
with an inferior force of mere militia, did he withstand the charge 
of Tarleton's celebrated cavalry legion, and as often compel it to 
retire in disorder. When Greene took the command, he besought 
Davie to become commissary general ; he yielded to his entreaties 
and did so ; and it is not saying too much to state that his personal 
influence, and the pledge of his own credit, in this dej^artment, 
contributed largely to save the South. After the war was over, he 
entered on the practice of his profession, and is now one of the 
most distinguished lawyers in the state. 

The other representative to be named from North CaroHna is 
Dr. Hugh Williamson. He is now a little more than fifty years 



THE CONVENTION. 71 

old. He was originally designed for the ministry, and indeed lias 
preached, as a licentiate of the presbytery of Philadelphia. He 
never, however, had charge of a congregation, for in early life his 
health was delicate, and he had not strength for the duties of 
the pulpit. He became, therefore, professor of mathematics in the 
University of Pennsylvania, and in a few years went abroad to 
pursue medical studies. He availed himself of the schools of Edin- 
burgh, London, and Utrecht, in which last he received his degree, 
and after making the tour of Europe, returned home, in improved 
health, and practised as a physician, in Philadelphia, for several 
years with success. His health, however, again failed him, and he 
was obliged to relinquish .his business. He employed himself in 
scientific studies, and, together with Eittenhouse, Ewing, and Smith, 
acted on a committee of the American Philosophical Society to ob- 
serve the transit of Yenus, in June, and that of Mercmy, in No- 
vember, of the year 1T69. He was with Dr. Ewing in Europe, in 
1YT4, 1775, and 1776, when the troubles with the mother country 
began, and, in Holland, first heard the news of the Declaration of 
Independence, when he hastened to retm^n home. The medical 
staff in the army was filled up before his "arrival, but circumstances 
ere long called him to Newbern, in North Carohna, and, while 
there, he took occasion to inform the governor that he might com- 
mand his services, if at any time, in the course of the war, he could 
be useful. In 1780 the state raised several thousand men to 
join the army for the relief of South Carohna, and placed them 
under the command of the late governor, Caswell, who then 
held the rank of major general. This gentleman immediately 
claimed the fulfilment of the promise Dr. "Williamson had made to 
him, and he was placed at the head of the medical department 
of the troops of North Carolina. Thus did he (though by birth a 
Pennsylvanian,) become connected with that state. The climate 



72 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

"better suited liis constitution, and lie probably considered Nortb 
Carolina Ms home. He was sent as a member from one of tlie bo- 
rough towns to the House of Commons, and was elected by the 
legislature to the Continental Congress, where he served three 
years, as long a time as the law allowed. You now see him here 
He is a very worthy and excellent man, of much observation and 
extensive attainments, and an undoubted patriot. 

But let me call your attention to John Kutledge, of South 
Carolina, an able and most accomplished gentleman. He is of Irish 
descent on his father's side, though a native of the state which he 
here represents. He studied law in the Temple, London, and 
returning to Charleston, commenced practice, so far back as 1761. 
He is very eloquent, and at once rose to the first rank in his pro- 
fession. "When Massachusetts, in 1*764, proposed to the other pro- 
vinces to appoint committees to meet in a Congress, as one step 
toward cementing an union, it was John Rutledge who induced the 
assembly of South Carolina to agree to the proposal, and he, with 
Christopher Gadsden and Thomas Lynch, were appointed the re- 
presentatives. He was the youngest of the three, and probably 
the youngest member of the Congress which met in New York in 
1T65. He was but some twenty-seven years old. The North, at 
that time, knew but little of the South ; its inhabitants were sup- 
posed to be indolent, and luxurious, and, at any rate, but little was 
expected from such a seeming striphng as John Rutledge; he 
spoke, and sober and thoughtful old men were surprised into admi- 
ration and respect by the eloquence of the young representative 
from South Carolina. His power over his constituents is very great. 
When news of the Boston port-bill reached Charleston, expresses 
were sent over the state to call a general meeting of the inhabi- 
tants. They came, and it was easy to induce them to appoint dele- 
gates to a general Congress ; but then came propositions to instruct 



THE CONVENTION. 73 

tliem how far they iniglit go in supporting tlie Bostonians. John 
Kutledge rose in all his might; his subject was, "No instructions to 
the representatives," but full authority to exercise theii' discretion, 
and a pledge, to the men of 'New England, that South Carolina 
would, to the death, stand by all her delegates promised for her. 
Some one in opposition asked what should be done if the delegates 
made an improper use of this large grant of power ? With an 
energy of manner which was in itself as forcible as an argument, 
the clear sound of his voice rose above the listening auditory, and 
rung out in his short words, full ahke of decision and honesty, 
''''Hang ihem^'' The impression was irresistible, and the delegates 
went without directions as to their conduct, ready to help Boston 
to the full extent of their ability. John Rutledge was one of those 
delegates. Washington cherished always the highest estimate of his 
virtues, and he referred to him, while he was himself a member of 
that body, as the greatest orator in the Continental Congress. He 
has served his state in her highest offices ; she has unbounded con- 
fidence in his patriotism, talents, decision, and firmness, and has 
now sent him to assist in maldug a Constitution. 

But here is another worthy son of South Carolina, Charles 
Cotesworth Pinckney. He also is a lawyer, and was educated at 
Westminster, Oxford, and the Temple. But he is a soldier too, and 
has passed through all the vicissitudes of a soldier's life. When 
his country needed him he relinquished law, and, girding on his 
sword, took the field as a captain, and was soon promoted to a 
colonelcy. The danger of invasion being over in South Carolina, 
he joined the northern army, and General Washington appointed 
him one of his aids. He fought at Brandy wine and Germantown, 
and, returning to the South, was intrusted with the defence of the 
fort on Sullivan's Island. The enemy passed without attacking it, 

when he instantly hastened to Charleston to defend the lines. 
10 



74 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT. 

Here lie was made a prisoner of war, and as his influence and en 
ergy were well known, lie was treated witli unusual and unmanly 
rigor, in order to crusli his spirit, and intimidate others. Menaces 
and promises were alike resorted to to corrupt liis fidelity. He was 
unmoved either by severity or temptations. He was true to his 
country. General Washington has a very high opinion of him, 
and he deserves it. He is a man of fine mind, and, as a scholar, 
ranked with the most eminent at Westminster and Oxford. 

There is yet another from South Carolina, of the same name. 
This is Charles Pinckney. He is a gentleman of great pohsh of 
manners, remarkable colloquial powers, and fervid eloquence. 
Throughout the revolutionary struggle he proved himself equally 
sagacious, earnest, and unchangeable. 

Only one more remains of whom we will speak ; not that the 
remaining characters before us are undistinguished or uninteresting, 
for there are several who might justly claim our notice ; but there 
is danger of becoming wearisome. Here is Abraham Baldwin, a 
Connecticut man, but now a representative from Georgia, in which 
State he has resided, as a lawyer, for many years. He has been a 
representative in the legislature of his adopted state ; and, with 
the aid of Mr. Milledge, may be said to have induced that body to 
found the university, at Athens. He has also been a delegate in 
the Continental Congress ; and is a faithful, industrious man, of 
excellent common sense. 

We shall find that we have here no assemblage of common 
men, but that the convention is composed almost entirely of those 
who have had experience, and have distinguished themselves by 
their talents and public services. In the very fii'st assembly of the 
colonies, held at Albany, in 1754, Dr. Franklin was a member ; in 
the Stamp Act Congress, of 1Y65, Dickinson of Delaware, Johnson 
of Connecticut, and Rutledge of South Carolina were members ; in 



THE CONVENTION. 75 

tlie Continental Congress, beginning in 17 74, and continuing up to 
1786, no less tljan eighteen of those we have particularly pointed 
out — Washington, Franklin, King, Gerry, Langdon, Sherman, 
Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, Clymer, Livingston, Dickinson, 
Read, Mercer, Wythe, Madison, Williamson, Rutledge and Bald- 
win — sat at different periods. Of these, Frankhn, Wythe, Sher- 
man, Read, Gerry, Robert Morris, and Clymer, signed the Declara- 
tion of Independence ; and so also did Wilson, who is here from 
Pennsylvania — as able and worthy as any of them, but of whom we 
had not time to speak particularly. The fact is, there are but 
twelve of the whole Convention who have not, at some time, sat 
in the Continental Congress. The army is represented, too, for 
here are Washington, Mifflin, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and 
Hamilton ; so that we may well call this an assembly of om^ most 
able, most tried, and most patriotic countrymen. 

Regarding the public characters who presided over our affairs 
during the stormy period of the war, and those on whom is de- 
volved the yet more difficult and even more important duty of cre- 
ating a system of government for the republic they have conducted 
to independence, we cannot refrain from a conviction that they 
were specially called to their high mission by an all wise and aU 
beneficent Providence. The extraordinary intelligence and virtue 
displayed in the Continental Congress, were recognized by saga- 
cious and dispassionate observers throughout the world ; Mirabeau 
spoke of it as a company of demigods ; and William Pitt, the great 
Earl of Chatham, exclaimed, " I must declare that in all my read- 
ing and observation — and it has been my favorite study : I have 
read Thucydides, and meditated the rise of the master states of the 
world — for sohdity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of 
conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no 
body of men can stand before the national Congress of Philadel- 



76 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

pMa." Those who were greatest in the revolutionary congresses, 
with many others, worthy to be associated with them, are in this 
ever to be remembered convention, assembled to define for centu- 
ries, perhaps for ever, the just limits of individ^ual liberty and pub- 
lic sovereignty. They will not fail to erect a monument which 
shall separate distinctly all the Future from all the Past in human 
history. 



THE TEAR OF SUSPENSE. 



That august assemblage in PhiladelpMa to wMcli was confided, 
in a larger degree tlian ever to any other body of men, the desti- 
nies of nations, bad closed its sittings and adjoui'ned ; tbe great 
thinkers and the great actors of our recent history were at their 
several homes waiting the decisions of the states, or busy with pa- 
triotic passion and all the resources of reason, in advocating the 
approval and ado23tion of the constitution. " A nation without a 
national government is an awful spectacle," wrote Alexander Ham- 
ilton ; " the estabhshment of a constitution in time of profound 
peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a prodigy, to 
the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety." 

The constitution was not entirely approved by any, but nearly 
all were willing to say with the venerable Franklin, " The opinions 
I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the pubHc good." With the 
masses, its best recommendation was that it bore the signature of 
WASHHs^GTOisr, of whose transcendent wisdom and justice there was 
a subtle, indefinable and almost universal appreciation and recog- 
nition. The noble Chief shared largely of the common anxiety re- 
specting the fate of the system of government formed by himself 
and his fiiends, and felt a truer joy, we may believe, when at length 



78 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

its triumpli was decided, than ever had warmed Lis heart at any 
victory in war. , 

II. 

If the winter of 1Y85, the Continental Congress had adjourned 
to New York, where all its subsequent sessions were held, until 
\ the organization. of the constitutional government. ]VIi\ Jefferson 
had been sent to fill the place of Franklin, at Paris ; Mr. Adams 
was in London ; and many of our leading characters, in affairs or 
in society, were in various parts of Europe, in the public service, 
or in pursuits of business or pleasure. 

John Quincy Adams was now eighteen years of age. He had 
already commenced his diplomatic career, as Secretary to Mr. 
Dana, our Minister at St. Petersburg. He had lately returned, 
to complete his academical education at Harvard College, and 
before visiting his friends in Boston he sent back to his sister, in 
London, an account of his first impressions of society and j)ohtics 
in New York. He called on Mr. Jay, the Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs, and next on Mr. Theodore Sedgwick, Mr. Eufus King, Mi\ 
Nathan Dane, and other delegates in Congress from Massachusetts. 
Mr. Gerry, he says, was glad to see him, on account of friendship 
for his father ; and Mr. King was very polite. They went with 
him to call on the President, ]\ii\ Lee, who inquu^ed with the kindest 
particularity concerning the ambassador. He also waited on Go- 
vernor Chnton, and the Spanish minister, Don Diego Gardoqui. 
The next day President Lee, who met him at a breakfast party at 
Mr. Gerry's, invited him to take an apartment in his house ; he en- 
deavored to excuse himself, as well as he could, but the invitation 
being renewed at dinner, he consented, rather reluctantly, being 
doubtful whether his course would be altogether pleasing to his 
father, whom he regarded as the real object of the attentions 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. ^^^ ^75 



K 



offered to him. Tlie President entertained tliree times a week, but 
never invited ladles, because tliere were none in his own bouse. 
His bealtb was not very good. " I believe the duties of bis office 
weary bim mucb," Adams writes ; " be is obbged, in tbis weatber, 
to sit in Congress from eleven in tbe morning until four in tbe after- 
noon, tbe warmest and most disagreeable part of tbe day. It was 
expected tbat Congress would adjourn during tbe dog-days, at 
least, but tbey bave so mucb business tbat a recess, however short, 
would leave them behindhand." A portion of tbe young states- 
man's gossip about men and women then most conspicuous in the 
metropobs, we transcribe from bis letters, which are more parti- 
cular and more entertaining than any other notices of life in New 
York during tbat summer. 

"At tea, this afternoon, at Mr. Ramsay's," be writes on tbe 
twentieth of July, " I met Mr. Gardoqui, and his secretary, Mr. 
Rawdon, who is soon, if common report says truly, to marry Miss 
M. His complexion and bis looks show sufficiently from what 
country be is. How happens it that revenge stares through tbe 
eyes of every Spaniard ? Mr. Gardoqui was very pobte, and en 
quii'ed much after my father, as did also Mr. Van Berckel, the Dutch 
minister." Mr. Ramsay was tbe amiable and accomplished histo- 
rian, and a representative from South Carobna. 

On the twenty-third he dined with General Knox, the secretary 
of war, who bved about four miles out of the city. The Virginia 
and Massachusetts delegations, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Lady Duer, 
daughter of Lord Stirling, Miss Sears, Mr. Church, Colonel Wads- 
worth, and Mr. Osgood, formed the company. " Lady Duer is not 
young, or handsome," he says ; but she would not have been thought 
old, by a man over eighteen, and she bad been, if she was not then, 
one of tbe sweetest looking women in the city. " Miss Sears," be 
continues, " has been ill, and looks pale ; but she Is very pretty, 



80 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

and has the reputation of being witty and sharp : I am sure she 
does not look mechanteP . After a passage of more than twelve 
weeks, from Amsterdam, the daughter of Mr. Van Berckel arrived 
in Philadelj)hia, and the minister set out to meet her. Young 
Adams had seen her in Holland, and does not appear to have 
formed a very high estimate of her beauty. " The young ladies 
here,", he remarks, " are very impatient to see her, and I dare say 
that when she comes reflections wiU not be spared on either side 
The beauties of New York will triumph, but, I hope, with mode 
ration." 

Colonel William S. Smith, a native of New York, who had 
served with considerable credit during the war, and was afterward 
appointed Secretary of Legation at the Court of London, was at 
this time engaged to Miss Adams. On the last day of July her 
brother went with a Mr. Jarvis to visit the family, at Jamaica, Long 
Island. 

" The colonel's mother," he writes, " appeared to miss him very 
much. All the family are in mourning for the old gentleman, who 
died about nine months ago. There is one son here now, and, if I 
mistake not, six daughters. Sally strikes most at first sight : she 
is tall, has a very fine shape, and a vast deal of \dvacity in her 
eyes, which are a light blue. She has the ease and elegance of the 
French ladies, without their loquacity. Her conversation, I am told, 
is as pleasing as her figure." This young lady was married in a few 
years to Charles Adams, the writer's brother. He also mentions a 
" celebrated beauty by the name of Miss Ogden," who then lived 
on the Island. He thought she resembled the handsome IVIi'S. 
Bingham, of Philadelphia, whom he had encountered abroad. 

On Sunday, the seventh of August, he writes, "I attended 

church this mornins: at St. Paul's : for we have a St. Paul's here as 

. . . . ' 

prell as you in London, though it is something like Alexander-the 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 81 

Great and Alexander tlie coppersmitli. It is, however, tlie largest 
and most frequented churcli in l^ew York. After clmrcli I left a 
card with Miss Van Berckel ; she arrived here from Philadelphia 
two days ago ; she complains of not understanding the language, as 
bitterly as you did when you first arrived in France." 

The next morning he went out with some company to a seat 
called Content, two or three miles from town, to call on Lady ,.- 
Wheate. " She is one of the most celebrated belles of the city. 
About two years ago she married Sii' Jacob Wheate, a British officer, 
between sixty and seventy years old ; she was not sixteen ; Sir 
Jacob, before he had been married a week, went to the West Indies, 
and there died. He left her a handsome fortune, and it is said she 
is soon to wed Sii* Francis Cochrane, son of Lord Dundonald, a 
Scotch nobleman. JMiss Sally Smith was with Lady Wheate, and 
has spent nearly a week with her. I am vastly pleased with this 
lady; the contrast between her manners and those of Lady Wheate 
is greatly in her favor, and very striking." 

He made several excursions to places in the vicinity. One was lx/ 
with Mr. Soderstrom, the Swedish consul, to Mr. Bayard, whose < 
seat was nearly a mile from the city. He had two daughters, who 
ranked among the toasts, and one of them he thought very pretty. 
Mr. Bayard had been a Tory, but the fact was now forgotten, or at 
least not remembered against his charming family. On another 
occasion he visited Monsieur de Marbois,* the French ckargd cfaf- i/ 

* Barbe Marbois, afterward the Marqnis de Marbois, was born at Metz, in 1Y45. He camo 
to America in 1779, as •secretary of legation tinder tbe Chevalier de la Luzerne, and when that / 
_ minister returned to France, in the spring of 1784, he became charge d'affaires, in which ca- ^ 
pacity he continued in this country until promoted to the place of Intendent of Ilispaniola, in 
1785 — a period of six years. He was a great favoi'ite in society while he resided in Philadel- 
phia, and among the papers of Mr. Tlieodore Sedgwick's family I find some gossip respecting 
his marriage with Miss Moore, of that city, in June, 1784 "The nuptials of M. de Marbois and 
Miss Moore," says the writer, " were celebrated not long since ; the ceremony was performed in 
the morning in the minister's chapel, by his abb^, and in the evening at Mr. Moore's, by Parson 
White. It gave occasion for the circulation of a variety of reports, such as, that the lady had 
11 



82 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

f aires ^ wlio had a summer house on Long Island. He describes 
Madame de Marbois as a " spruce, pretty little woman," who spoke 
French very well, and had none of the rigid principles of the Qua- 
kers, among whom she was born. Among the eminent persons with 
whom he dined, at one place or another, were Dr. Witherspoon, 
Dr. Johnson, Baron Steuben, and Thomas Paine, who at this period 
was sometimes admitted to the tables of respectable men. 

III. 

The winter of 1787-88 is represented as having been more gay* 
than any since New York was first agitated with the discontents 
leading to the revolution. The last session of the Continental Con- 
gress was organized, on the second day of January, by the election of 
Cyrus Griffin, of Virginia, as President ; and as the Constitutional 
Convention, in Philadelphia, had adjourned in the previous Septem- 
ber, the wisdom of the nation was largely assembled here, either in 
official capacities, or to operate more effectively on public opinion 
whjle the fate of the Cortstitution was still doubtful, or on account 
of those social attractions which every country finds in its capital. 

M. de Marbois had been superseded as charge d'affiiii'es by M. 

renounced lier religion and embraced tlie Catholic — being baptized, and receiving the sacra- 
ment ; though, in fact, I believe nothing was required of either party but toleration of each other." 
Washington wrote to him on this occasion : " It was with very great pleasure I received from 
your own pen an account of the agreeable and happy connection you were about to form with 
Miss Moore. Though you have given many proofs of your predilection and attachment to this 
country, yet this la^t may be considered not only as a great and tender one, but as the most 
pleasing and lasting one. TTie accomplishments of the lady, and her connections, cannot fail to 
make it so. On this joyous event, accept, I pray you, the congratulations of Mrs. Washington 
and myself, who cannot fail to participate in whatever contributes to the felicity of yourself or 
your amiable consort, with whom we both have the happiness of an acquaintance, and to whom 
and the family we beg leave to present our comj^liments. With very great esteem and regard, 
and an earnest desire to approve myself worthy of your friendship, I have the honor to be," <fec., 
(fee. M. de Marbois held.many important offices iinder Napoleon, and he is known as an author, 
in this country, by his Historrj of Louisiana and a work on the Treason of Benedict Arnold His 
daughter, who was born in New York, was married to the Duke de Plaisance, son of Le Brun, one 
of Napoleon's colleagues in the consulate. 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 83 

Louis William Otto, wlio had resided liere several years, and who .- 
continued in his present office until the arrival of the Marquis de 
Moustier,* at the end of the -year 1787, when he became secretary 
of legation. For the previous ministers from France the American 
people had justly entertained a most affectionate respect. When 
Gerard was about to leave us Washington said to him, " You car- 
ry l^dth you the affections of a whole people, and leave behind you 
a reputation which will have the peculiar fortune to be every where 
admired by good men." When Luzerne retired, he wrote to him, ^' 
" When I say you have inspired me with sentiments of sincere re- 
spect and attachment, I do not speak the language of my own heart 
only : it is the universal voice." In the same manner he expressed 
his resfard for Marbois. And all these Frenchmen cherished for 
Washington a profound admiration. The Count de Moustier was 
less fortunate, in temper and abilities, and seemed more anxious 
to win the admiration of the ]Deople than the confidence of the 
government. One of his earliest communications to Washington, 
was a complaint respecting some fancied neglect, in certain j)oints 
of etiquette. After making a tour through the country, however, 
he seemed better pleased, and during his residence in New York 
he contributed much to the gayety and happiness of its society. 

Governor William Livingston, of New Jersey, in a letter of the 
third, of March, 1787, alludes to the fashionable life here, and in a 
characteristic sentence reproves its extravagance and dissipation. 
"My principal secretary of state, who is one of my daughters," he 
says, " is gone to New York to shake her heels at the baUs and 

* Eleonor-Frangois Elie, Marquis de Moustier, Lieutenaat General, (fee, <fec., was now thirty- 
Bcven years of age. He possessed a liberal fortune, ajid, though penurious, was fond of display : 
none of the foreign ministers entertained more frequently or more ostentatiously. Brissot de 
Warville says he heard him boast that he told GrifSn, the President of Congress, in his own 
house, that he was but a tavern-keeper; " and the Americans had the complaisance not to demand 
his recall!" M. de Moustier remained faithful to the Bourbons, and, during the ascendency of 
tfapoleon, found refuge in England. He died in the beginning of ISl^. 



84 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

assemblies of a metropolis wliicli might as well be — more studious 
of paying its taxes than of instituting expensive diversions." 

IV. 

--A. The country wliicli watched our expeiience witli the profoundest 
interest was France. She was already heaving with passions which 
derived their energy from our examj^le ; and for many years the 
most inquisitive and intelligent speculators on our resources, gov- 
ernment, society and manners, were Frenchmen, in compulsory or 
voluntary exile, or, commissioned for observation, applying their 
best faculties to the solution of the new enigma in history. Among 
the rest came Brissot de Warville, young, handsome, full of enthu- 
siasm, but, said Washington, " intelligent, discreet, and disposed to 
receive favorable impressions of America." Sullivan describes him 
as a "brisk little Frenchman," and says he was well received here. 
The fate of poor Brissot is well known : he reiippeared in Paris 
with the simple costume of a Quaker, and was the first to introduce 
in his own country the fashion of wearing the hair without powder. 
These things should have been sufficient to secure for him applause 
as a " citizen," but he went further, and published his Nouveau 
Voyage dans les Mats- TInis de VAmerique Septentrionale^^ with a 
motto from Tacitus, to the effect that " A people without morals 
may acquire liberty, but without morals cannot preserve it;^' 
truths which were presently to meet with fearfully striking illustra- 
tions on a scale so extraordinary, one might think, as to make the 
lesson sufficiently impressive for all time. He became a chief of the 
Gu^ondins, a party which would have governed by intelligence and 

* His other works on America are: Examen du Voyage du 3farquis de Chastcllux dans 
I'Amerigue Septentrlonale ; Le Philadelpkien d, Genhve ; Memoire sur les Noirs de VAmeriqne 
Sepleiitrionale, lu a V AssembUe de la Societe des Amis dcs Noirs ; and De la France ct de.i 
Eiats-Unis, ou de V Importance de la Revolution de VAmerique pour le Bonheur de la France; 
and he wx'ote largely on American affairs in his journal, Le Patriot Frangais. 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 85 

respectability, and on tTie tliirty-first of October, 1*798, was exa 
cuted by tlie guillotine.* 

It is not to be denied that Brissot de Warville was a more 
partial observer of American society tban some of liis countrymen 
wlio had written on the same subject, and he was betrayed into 
controversies with M. de Moustier, the Marquis de Chastellux, and 
others, who objected to his authority on the ground of the short- 
ness of his residence among ns ; but he held that " the telescope of 
reason was better than the microscope of office ; " and appealed 
with equal tact and sagacity to the new instincts of the Parisians 
for a decision against his adversaries. " The greater part of French- 
men who travel and migrate," he says, " have httle information, and 
are not prepared for the art of observation ; presumptuous to ex- 
cess, and admirers of their own customs and manners, they ridi- 
cule those of other nations; and ridicule gives them a double 
pleasure : it feeds then* own pride and humbles that of others. At 
Philadelphia, for instance, the men are grave, the women serious : 
no finical airs, no libertine wives, no coffee-honses, no agreeable 
walks. My Frenchman finds every thing detestable at Philadel- 
phia, because he could not strut upon a Boulevard, babble in a 
coffee-house, or seduce a pretty woman by his important airs and 
fine curls. He was almost offended that the women did not ad- 
mire them, and that they did not speak French — he lost so much 
in not being able to show his wit ! If, then, a person of this caste 
attempts to describe the Americans, he shows his own character, 

* Lamartine, by -whom Brissot de Warville lias been ti-eated with a severity wnich has 
been denounced as entirely unjust, admits that he "nurtured in the depths of his soul these 
virtues: an unshaken love for a young girl, ■whom he married in spite of his family; a love for 
occupation; and a courage against the difficulties of life, which he had afterward to display in 
the face of death." Lafayette introduced him to Washington, saying in his letter : " He is very 
clever, and wishes much to be presented to you; he intends to write the history of America, 
and is, of course, desirous to have a peep into your papers, -which appears to me a deserved con- 
descension, as he is fond of America^ writes pretty well, and will set matters in a proper light." 



86 THE KEPUBLIC AN COURT. 

but not tlieii'S. A people grave, serious, and reflecting, cannot 
be judged of and appreciated but by a person of like qualities. " 

With bis friend, Claviere, M. Brissot landed at Boston, near tbe 
close of July, 1788, and a few days afterward tbey set out for tbe 
South, passed leisurely tbrougb Massachusetts and Connecticut, and 
were delighted with every thing they saw, until their arrival in 
New York. The city was still confined to narrow limits ; Broad- 
way extended but to Anthony street, then called Catharine street, 
beyond which were hills, sloping on the east side to the Kolch, 
and on the west to the lowlands of lispenard's meadows. Beyond 
Kutgers street, the bridge, at Canal street, and Harrison street, 
alono- the several chief avenues from the Bowling Green were a few 
country houses ; but the town, properly speaking, covered only 
the districts since devoted exclusively to trade. One of the Lu- 
theran churches was offered a plot of ground, containing six acres, 
where Canal street now meets Broadway ; but the trustees of the 
society decided that it was " inexpedient to accept the gift as the 
land was not worth fencing in." That the city must soon surpass 
all others on the continent, however, was even then foreseen and 
acknowledged, as a necessary consequence of her magnificent situ- 
ation — upon the whole, incomparably the finest occupied by any 
great town in ancient or modern times. 

In the course of the summer and autumn, M. Brissot had ample 
opportunities for observation of the social characteristics of the 
people, and he describes whatever arrested his attention in a very 
graphic and spirited manner. "The presence of Congress, with the 
diplomatic body, and the concom^se of strangers," he says, " con- 
tributes much to extend here the ravages of luxury. The inhabi- 
tants are far from complaining at it; they prefer the splendor of 
wealth, and the show of enjoyment, to a simplicity of manners, 
and the pure pleasures resulting from it. The habit of smoking 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 87 

has not disappeared in this town, with the other customs of their 
fathers, the Dutch. They use cigars, which come from the Span- 
ish islands. These are leaves of tobacco, rolled in the form of a 
tube, six inches long, and are smoked without the aid of any 
instrument. This usao:e is revoltino; to the French. It must be 
disagreeable to the women, by destroying the purity of the breath. 
The philosopher condemns it, as it is a superfluous want. It has, 
however, one advantage : it accustoms to meditation, and prevents 
loquacity. The smoker is asked a question : the answer comes two 
minutes after, and is well founded. The cigar renders to a man 
the service that the philosopher drew from a glass of water, which 
he drank when he was in anger. 

" If there is a town on the American continent where English 
luxury displays its follies, it is New York. You will find here the 
English fashions. In the dress of the women you will see the most 
brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair. Equipages are 
rare ; but they are elegant. The men have more simplicity in 
their di'ess ; they disdain gewgaws, but they take their revenge in 
the delicacies of the table. Luxury forms already in this town a 
class of men very dangerous in society — I mean bachelors: the 
expense of women causes matrimony to be dreaded by men. Tea 
forms, as in England, the basis of the principal entertainments. 
Fruits, though much attended to in this state, are far from possess- 
ing the beauty and excellence of those of Europe. I have seen trees, 
in September, loaded at once with apples and with flowers. M. de 
Crevecoeur* is right in his description of the abundance and good 

* The Chevalier Saint John de CrcveccBur was at this time Consul of France for Connecticut, 
New Jersey and New York, residing in the city of New York. He was born of a noble family 
in Normandie, in 1731, and passed the larger part of his life in America, where he was very 
much respected. He returned to France in the early part of this century, and was elected a 
member of the Institute. His principal writings are "Lettrcs d'un Cidtivateur Amerkain,' 
Paris, second edition, 1787, three volumes, octavo; and " Voyage dans la Haute-Pennsyhanie 
et dans Vetat de New York" Paris, 1801, three volvimes, octavo. He died at Sarcelles, in 1818. 



88 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

quality of provisions at New York, in vegetables, flesh, and espe- 
cially in fish. It is difficult to unite so many advantages in one 
place. Provisions are dearer at 'New York than in any other of 
the northern or middle states. Many things, especially super- 
fluities, are dearer here than in France. A hair-dresser asks 
twenty shiUings per month, and washing costs four shillings for 
a dozen pieces. 

" Strangers, who, having lived a long time in America, tax the 
Americans with cheating, have declared to me that this accusation 
must be confined to the towns, and that in the country you will 
find them honest. The French are the most forward in makins: 
these complaints, and they beheve that the Americans are more 
trickish with them than with the English. If this were a fact, I 
should not be astonished at it. The French whom I have seen 
^re eternally opposing the manners and customs of the Americans, 
decrying their institutions, exalting the favors rendered by the 
French government to the Americans, and diminishing those of 
Congress to the French. 

" One of the greatest errors of travellers is to calculate prices of 
provisions in a country, by the prices in taverns a,nd boarding- 
houses. It is a false basis : we should take, for the town, the price 
at the market, and this is about half that which one pays at the 
tavern. And this would be still false, if it were applied to the 
country. There are many articles which are abundant in the 
country, and are scarcely worth the trouble of collecting and 
bringing to market. These reflections appear to me necessary to 
put one on his guard against beheving too readily in the prices 
reported by hasty travellers. Other cii'cumstances likewise influ- 
ence prices : such, for example, as war, which M. Chastellux takes 
no notice of in his exaggerated account of this matter. The 
rates were about twice as high in New Yoi^ during the war, as 



1 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 89 

they are now. Boarding and lodging, by tlie week, is from four 
to six dollars. The fees of lawyers are out of all proportion; 
they are, as in England, excessive. Physicians have not the same 
advantage in this respect as lawyers, the good health generally 
enjoyed here rendering them little necessary ; yet they are suffi- 
ciently numerous." 

The Frenchman proceeds with descriptions of several pubHc 
institutions, and of some of the most distinguished persons with 
whom he became acquainted here. He introduces Jay, Madison, 
Hamilton, Mifflin, Duer, and Rufus King, with expressions of ! 
admiration. John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was ^ 
forty-three years of age, and it would be difficult to find in history 
a character altogether more respectable. ]\Ir. Madison was about 
thirty-seven, though Brissot thought him but thirty-three; "he 
had an air of fatigue, perhaps the effect of his immense labors, and 
his looks announced a censor ; his conversation discovered a man of 
learning, and his reserve was that of a man conscious of his talents 
and his duties." He was still a bachelor, but he invited the travel- 
ler to dine with him at his hotel. Hamilton, who had the finest • 
genius and one of the bravest tempers ever displayed in .politics, is 
praised, but not with such earnestness as would have shown a just 
estimate of his extraordinary merits ; he was six years younger 
than Madison, but was judged to be five years older ; " his counte- 
nance was decided, his air open and martial," and his whole appear- 
ance that of " a determined republican." Brissot dined at Hamil- 
ton's also, and describes Mrs. Hamilton as a " charming woman, who 
joined to the graces all the candor and simpHcity of the American 
wife." Rufus King, whom he met at the table of his friend, was 
nearly thirty-three years old ; he " passed for the most eloquent 
man in the United States," and what most struck Brissot in him 

was "his modesty — he appeared ignorant of his own worth." 
12 



90 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

General Mifflin, wlio was tliere also, " added to tlie vivacity of a 
Frencliman every obliging characteristic ; " and Colonel Duer, 
Secretary to tlie Treasury Board, united to gi'eat abilities mucli 
goodness of heart. Soon after, the young student of democracy 
was invited to a dinner party at the house of Cyi^us Griffin, the 
President of Congress, and he gives us a glimpse of the toilettes of 
the ladies, whereof, for a Parisian, he seems to have been some- 
what fastidiously critical : 

" Mr. Griffin is a Virginian,* of very good abilities, of an agree- 
able figure, affable and polite. I saw at his house, at dinner, seven 
or eight women, all dressed in great hats, plumes, &c. It was with 
pain that I remarked much of pretension in some of these women ; 
one acted the giddy, vivacious ; another, the woman of sentiment. 
This last had many pruderies and grimaces. Two among them 
had their bosoms very naked. I was scandalized at this mdecency 
among republicans. A President of Congress is far from being 
surrounded with the splendor of European monarchs ; and so much 
the better. He is not durable in his station; and so much the 
better. He does not give pompous dinners ; he never forgets that 
he is a simple citizen, and will soon return to the station of one ; 
and so much the better. He has fewer parasites, and less means 
of corruption. I remarked, that his table was freed from many 
usages observed elsewhere : no fatiguing presentations, no toasts, 
so annoying in a numerous society. Little wine was di'ank after 
the women had retired. These traits will give you an idea of the 
temperance of this country — temperance, the leading vii'tue of 
republicans." 

Among the houses at which M. Brissot dined, was Mr. Jay's. 

* M. de Warville was slightly mistaken ; Mr, Griffin was a native of England, and connected 
by marriage with an ancient and noble family of Scotland; but he had been conspicuous for 
his devotion to American liberty, and few men from Vii'ginia shared more largely the respect 
ind confidence of Washington. 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 91 

We liave before us tlie " dinner and supper list " kept by Mrs. / 
Jay during tlie years 1787 and 1788, from wMcli we learn that tbe 
guests for tlie second day of September, in tlie latter year, were Mr 
and Mrs. Pintard, Mr. and Mrs. Eufus King, Mr. and Mrs. Montgom- 
ery, Mr. and Miss Van Berckel, Mr. Otis, Mr. Dane, Mr. Gerry, Mr. 
Sedgwick, Mr. Gilman, Mr. Wingate, Mr. Wadswortk, Mr. Hunt- 
ington, M. Brissot de Warville, M. de la Valle, *I\I. de Saussure. 

V. 

We sliall dismiss M. de Warville a while, for other contempo- 
rary writers on society and manners in the metropolis. The only 
daughter of John Adams had been married in London, on the 
12th of June, 1786, to Colonel William S. Smith, at that time our 
Secretary of Legation ; and they returned to the United States in 
the summer of 1788, arriving in Nev*^ York on the thii'teenth of 
May. Mrs. Smith's letters are very much like those of John 
Qu'incy Adams, which we have ah'eady quoted. On the twentieth 
of May she wrote to her mother : 

" Colonel Smith's friend, Mr. McCormick, came on board and 
conducted us to his house, where I have been treated with great 
kindness and attention. My mamma and Miss M. Smith came to 
town on Friday, and on Sunday I went over to Long Island, to 
visit the other part of the family ; it is a family where affection 
and harmony prevail ; you would be charmed to see us altogether ; 
our meeting was joyful and happy. 

" My time, since my arrival, has been wholly occupied in re- 
ceiving visits and accepting invitations. I have dined at General 
Knox's. Mrs. Knox has improved much in her appearance. The 
General is not half so fat as he was. Yesterday we dined at Mr. ^ 
Jay's, in company with the whole corps diplomatique / Mr. Jay is 
a most pleasing man, plain in his dress and manners, but kind, af- 



92 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

fectionate, and attentive ; benevolence is portrayed in every fea- 
N ture. Mrs. Jay dresses gaily and sliowily, but is very pleasing 
upon a sliglit acquaintance. Tlie dinner was a la mode Frangaise^ 
and exhibited more of European taste than I expected to find 
Mr. Gardoqui was as chatty and sociable as his countryman Del 
Campo, Lady Temple civil, and Sir John more of the gentleman 
than I ever saw him. The French minister is a handsome and 
apparently polite man ; the marchioness, his sister, the oddest figure 
eyes ever beheld : in short, there is so much said of and about her, 
and so little of tjuth can be known, that I cannot pretend to form 
any kind of judgment in what manner or form my attention would 
be properly dii-ected to her ; she speaks English a little, is very 
much out of health, and was taken ill at Mr. Jay's, before we went 
to dinner, and obliged to go home. 

" Congress are sitting ; but one hears little more of ihem than 
if they v/ere inhabitants of the new-discovered planet. The Pre- 
sident is said to be a worthy man ; his wife is a Scotch woman, 
with the title of Lady Christiana Griffin ; she is out of health, but 
appears to be a friendly-disposed woman ; we are engaged to dine 
there next Tuesday. Every one is kind and civil in his inquiries 
respecting my father. Some persons expected he would have 
taken New York in his way home ; others expect he will make 
them a visit in the course of the summer ; every body inquires if 
he is not coming ; and it seems to be a very general idea that he 
will come. He will judge for himself of the propriety of a visit to 
this place. I need not say, that to see both my parents here, 
would contribute greatly to my happiness. . . . 

" I thought I had no local attachments, but I find I have a 
strong penchant towards your city ; yet I do not give a preference, 
lest I might be disappointed were I to visit Boston at this time 
Our minds are strangely but happily flexible, and very soon we are 



^ 




MMgoWIHiaiil 



f:V)ii(inc'j&c, 



Ar f:-y/y.-fY:y yfy/ 0?, 



^■^^:.:.'-/. 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 93 

assimilated to tlie situation in wMcli we are placed, either by de- 
sign or accident." 

The marchioness referred to by Mrs. Smith was Madame de 
Brehan, sister of the Count de Moustier, who, with her son, accom- 
panied him on his mission to this country. She was a very clever 
woman, wi*ote with spirit, and had some skill as an artist. She 
made several portraits of Washington, one of which was presented 
by him to Mrs. Bingham, and of another, which was engraved in 
Paris, many copies were sent to Washington, and to her friends 
here, after her return to France. She appears to have made her- 
self more agreeable to Mr. Jefferson than to Mrs. Smith. In a let- 
ter to her on her quitting Paris for the United States, he says, 
"The imitations of European. manners, which you will find in our 
towns, will, I fear, be httle pleasing ; I beseech you to practise still 
your own, which will furnish them a model of what is perfect. 
Should you be singular^ it will be by excellence, and after a while 
you will see the effect of your example." Very few of his pontem- 
poraries could approach women with more happy compliments 
than Mr. Jefferson ; but it is proper to state that the language of 
Mrs. Smith in regard to Madame de Brehan is justified in the de- 
scriptions of her which we have from other hands. Among the 
young men then in New York was John Armstrong, who says in 
a letter to his friend General Gates : " We have a French minister 
now with us, and if France had wished to destroy the little remem- 
brance that is left of her and her exertions in our behalf, she would 
have sent just such a minister : distant, haughty, penurious, and j^ 
entirely governed by the caprices of a little singular, whimsical, 
hysterical old woman, whose delight is in playing with a negro 
child, and caressing a monkey." 

The business of the French legation was probably transacted 
for the most part by M. Otto, who possessed the most agreeable 



94 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

social qualities, and was connected by man-iage witli tlie families of 
Livinsfston and Crevecoeur.* 

Sir John Temple , was the British Consul General. He was a 
native of Boston, and had inherited his title from his great grand- 
father, who lived and died in England. His character has been 
much discussed ; the translator of the Travels of the Marquis de 
Chastellux, in several notes, refers to him as a person utterly des- 
titute of honor, and charges him with such political duplicity during 
his residence in Boston, as should have prevented his ever revisit- 
ing this country. Mr. Robert 0. Winthrop,f on the other hand, 
gives a very favorable view of his conduct, which he declares 
evinced a steady and consistent attachment to America. Lady 
Temple was a daughter of Governor Bowdoin, of Massachusetts, 
and had probably been previously acquainted with the Adams 
family. The Marquis de Chastellux said of her in 1T82, "If I do 
not place Mrs. Temple in the hst of handsome women it is not from 
want of respect, but because her figure is so distinguished as to 
make it unnecessary to pronounce her truly beautiful." 

On the fifteenth of June Mrs. Smith wi'ote again to her mother, 
giving some further notices of the people she had met : " "We are 
treated here," she says, " with gi'eat civility and friendship. We 
were in\dted to dine with the Governor, which was a very particu- 
lar favor. He and his family neither visit nor are visited by any 
families, either in public or private life. He sees no company, and 
is not much beloved or respected. His conduct in many points 

* Louis Guillamne Otto, afterward Comte de Mosloy, was born in the Grand Duchy of Baden, 
m 1754. He accompanied M. de la Luzerne to this country in 1779, and remained here till 1792. 
In 1805 he was offered the post of Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States, but declined 
it. His first wife, to whom he was married in 1782, was a Miss Livingston, " of one of the most 
considerable families of the United States ;" and in April, 1790, he was married again, in New 
York, to Mile. Fanny de Creyecoeur, daughter of the French Consul. He died in Paris on the 
nintli of November, 1817. 

f In his Address before the Maine Historical Society, in 1849. 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 95 

is censured, perhaps -unjustly; lie is particular, perLaps, with 
others. That he is a man of undecided character, no one who 
sees him will say. To me he appears one whose conduct and mo- 
tives of action are not to be seen thi'ough upon a slight examina- 
tion. The part he has taken on the subject of the new Constitu- 
tion is much condemned. What are his motives I do not pretend 
to judge ; but I do not believe that he acts or thinks without some 
important reasons. Mrs. Chnton is not a showy but is a kind, 
friendly woman. She has five daughters, and one son ; the second 
daughter is about fourteen years old, and as smart and sensible a 
girl as I ever knew : a zealous pohtician, and a high anti-Federalist. 
The Governor does not conceal his sentiments, but I have not heard 
that he has given any reasons for them. His family are all poli- 
ticians. He set off, yesterday, for the Convention. 

" General" and Mrs. Knox have been very polite and attentive 
to us. Mrs. Knox is much altered from the character she used to 
have. She is neat in her dress, attentive to her family, and very 
fond of lier children. But her size is enormous ; I am frightened 
when I look at her ; I verily believe that her waist is as large as 
three of yours, at least. 

" Sir John Temple has taken upon himself very singular airs re- 
specting us. It has been his constant custom to visit every stran- 
ger who came to town, upon his arrival. Lady Temple called 
upon me, at a very late day after we arrived, but Sir John has 
not visited Colonel Smith, and says to others that he does not 
know in what manner to behave to him, because he does not 
know how he took leave : whether it was a gracious audience that 
he met with. I returned Lady Temple's visit by a card, without 
asking for her, which she complains of. I respect Lady Temple, 
and as it is probable we shall sometimes meet at a third place, 1 
wished to be upon civil terms with her, particularly as she has 



96 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

often expressed a regard for me since slie has been liere Nor 

will I exchange visits with any lady, where my husband is not re- 
ceived with equal attention. 

" I hear that my father is chosen a delegate to Congress for 
next year. I hope he will accept, for, independent of my wish that 
he should not retii'e from public business, I think his presence in 
Congress would do a great deal towards reforming the wi'ong sen- 
timents and opinions that many are biased by. Both precept and 
example are wanting here ; and his sentiments in politics are more 
respected than those of many other persons. It is said he must come 

and be President next year Every body is looking forward 

to. the establishment of the new Constitution, with great expecta- 
tions of receiving advantage from it. To me, I confess, the conse- 
quences are problematical; and should any one or more states 
continue to oppose it, and refuse to ado23t it, melancholy w^ill be 
the scenes which ensue, I fear." 

On another occasion, she writes to Mrs. Adams : " We have 
dined to-day at President Griffin's, with a company of twenty-two 
persons, including many members of Congress, &c. Had you been 
present you would have trembled for your country, to have seen, 
heard and observed the men who are its rulers. Very different 
they were, I beheve, in times past. All now were high upon the 
question before them ; some were for it, some against it ; and there 
were very few whose behavior bore many marks of wisdom." 

" You would not be much pleased with society here. It is 
quite enough dissipated. Public dinners, public days, and private 
parties, may take up a person's whole attention, if they attend to 
them all. The President of Congress gives a dinner one or two or 
more days every week, to twenty persons — gentlemen and ladies. 
.^ Mr. Jay, I believe, gives a dinner almost every week, besides, one 
to the coiyys dvplomatiqiie ; on Tuesday evenings JMiss Van Berckel 




WW^.^^j(U)MM cJTAir,- 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 97 

and Lady Temple see company ; on Tliursdays, JMrs. Jay, and Mrs. 
La Forest, tlie wife of tlie Frencli Consul ; on Fridays, Lady Chris- 
tiana, tlie Presidentess ; and on Saturdays, Mrs. Secretary . 

Papa knows her, and, to be sure, she is a curiosity ! " 

Mrs. Smith was decidedly iU-pleased with life in New York, 
ar.d was gratified, therefore, when Colonel Smith hired a small farm 
on Long Island, where she could live quietly, without ever think- 
ing of slights by Sir John and Lady Temple, the odd figure of 
Madame de Brehan, the circumference of Mrs. Knox's waist, or any 
of the thousand grievances which claimed her unwilling attention 
in the city. 

VI. 

DuEma the last sessions of the Continental Congress, and all 
the period indeed in which Mr. Jay was Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, the first place in New York society was occupied by the 
family of that pure-minded and most accomplished statesman. His 
wife was admirably fitted by natural graces and knowledge of the 
world for her distinguished position. She was a daughter of Gov- . 
ernor Livingston, and was named Sarah Van Brugh, after her 
father's grandmother, who had botn the guide and protectress of 
his boyhood. Among her sisters were Susan, who married John 
Cleve Symmes, Kitty, who married Matthew Eidley, and Judith, 
who married John W. Watkins. She was very carefully educated, 
and in April, 1*774, being then in her eighteenth year, was mar- 
ried at Ehzabethtown to Mr. Jay, then about twenty-nine. Until 
1779 she passed most of her time at the pleasant house of her 
father, where she was visited by her husband as often as his vari- 
ous important public duties would permit, and in that year she ac- 
companied him to Spain, where he was the first American minister. 

In 1782 they proceeded to Paris, where Mi*. Jay was ordered to 
13 



98 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

arrange witli tlie otlier commissioners tlie definitive treaty of peace 
witli England. During her residence in Paris slie was a great fa- 
vorite in society. Spain liad been less agreeable to lier ; but wlieu 
slie passed the frontier into France, she wrote to lier mother that 
" the enchanting prospects and fertile fields which every where ar- 
rested and engaged attention, the gayety and industry of the in- 
habitants," and every thing indeed she saw or heard, reconciled 
her to the lot of humanity, with which some scenes in the pre- 
ceding part of the journey had almost disgusted her. In 1785, 
wilting from Paris, Miss Adams remarks, "Every person who 
knew her when here bestows many encomiums on Mrs. Jay : Mad- 
ame de Lafayette said she was well acquainted with her, and very 
fond of her, adding, that Mrs. Jay and she thought alike, that 
pleasm-e might be found abroad, but happiness only at home, in 
the society of one's family and friends." We have before us let- 
ters from Madame de Lafayette to Mrs. Jay, which disclose the 
very warm friendship she conceived for her. Declining the ap- 
pointment of' commissioner to England, IVIr. Jay returned with his 
family to New York, where he was welcomed with an enthusiastic 
public reception, and he presently accepted the office of Secretary 
for Foreign Affaii'S. This pron^ent position of her husband com- 
pelled Mi's. Jay to intermit her domestic duties, and her " invitation 
list" during the years 1*787 and 1788, seems to indicate the cii'cle of 
New York society in that period, as well as the American states- 
men and distinguished foreigners who met at her table.* 

* As far as we can decipher the names, this list embraced !BIr. Alsop, Mr. and Mrs. Allen, 
General Armstrong, Mr. and Miss Van Berckel, Mrs. Bruce, Sir. Barclay, Miss Browne, Mr. Ben- 
son, Mr. Bingham, Major Beckwith, Mr. Pierce Butler, Mrs. and the ISIisses Butler, Major Butler, 
Colonel Burr, Mr. Bronson, Sliss Bayard, Mr. Blount, Mr. Constable, Dr. and Mrs. Charlton, 
Mr. and Mrs. A. Van Cortlandt, Miss Van Cortlandt, Mr. F. Van Cortlandt, Mr, and Mrs. Colden, 
Miss Cuyler, Governor Clinton, General Clinton, Mr. Freeman Clarkson, Mr. Stratfield Clarkson, 
Mr. Levinus Clarkson, Mr, Henry Cruger, Mr. Cadwallader, General Clarkson, Mr. Corbit, Colonel 



THEYEAROFSUSPENSE. 99 

I Few women in tlie city were more admii'ed tlian Mrs. Rufiis 
King, tliougli slie possessed little of that fondness for display wliicli 
made others far more conspicuous. She was a daughter of John 
Alsop, an opulent merchant, whose large abilities, patriotism, and 
well-known integrity had secured his election to the Continental 
Congress which declared the colonies independent. He had been 
so conspicuous in his opposition to the British Government, that 
when its troops took possession of New York in 1778, it was neces- 
sary for him to seek another home, and he withdrew to Middle- 
town, in Connecticut, where the gHhood of Mary Alsop was passed. 
After the peace Mr. Alsop returned to New York, and there re- 
mained until his death, in 1795. Mr. King was elected to the Con- 
gress in 1784, and was annually reelected until 1789; he became 
acquainted with Miss Alsop soon after his first arrival in the city, 

Carrington, M. Chaumont, Mr. Duer, Lady Kitty Duer, Mr. Mrs. and Miss Duane, Mr. Dotvsc, 
Mr. Dane, Mr. F. De Peyster, Miss De Peyster, Mr. Duane, Monsieur de la Forest, Colonel Fevr, 
Mr. Franklin, Mr. Gardoqui, Mr. and Mrs. Grayson, Mr. Gouverneur, Mr. and Miss Gorham, Mr. 
Gerry, Mr. Gansevoort, Mr. Gilman, Mr. Richard Harrison, Mr. Hindman, Colonel and Mrs. 
Hamilton, Mr. Haring, Mr. Huger, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. and Mrs. Houston, Mr. Hobart, Mr. Izard, 
General Irwin, Dr. William Samuel Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Jay, Mrs. James, Mr. S.# 
Jones, Chevalier Paul Jones, Mr. Kemble, General and Mrs. Knox, Mr. and Mrs. Rufus King, Mr. 
Kean, Dr. and Mrs. Kissam, Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Ludlow, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Judge Living- 
ston, Mr. and Mrs. W. Livingston, Miss S. Livingston, Miss Maria Livingston, Miss Eliza Living- 
ston, Mr. Philo Livingston, Chancellor Livingston, Mr. John Lawrence, Mr. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. 
Ladron, Mr. C. Laidlaw, Mrs. Laidlaw, Major John Rowland Livingston, M. Lattiniere, Mr. and 
Mrs. R. H. Lee, Mr. and Mrs. A. Lee, Miss Marshall, Mr. Meredith, Count de Moustier and Mad- 
ame de Brehan, Mrs. Montgomery, Mr. Itlitchell, Mr. and Mrs. Mason, Mr. Mason, Jr., Mr. and 
Mrs. Moore, Mr. J. Marston, Mi\ Matthews, General Morris, Mr. Gouverneur Morris, Mr. Madison, 
Major North, Mr. Osgood, Monsieur and Madame Otto, Mr. and Mrs. Pintard, Miss Pintard, Mr. 
and Mrs. Pierce, the President of Congress, Colonel Parker, Mr. Parker, Mr. Pinckney, Bishop 
and Mrs. Provost, Mi*, and Miss Pratt, Mr. John Rutherford, Mrs. Rutherford, Mr. Rondon, Mr. 
Read, Miss Van Rensselaer, Mr. Rickets, Colonel Ross, Governor Rutledge, Mr. Remsen, Mr. Sears 
and family, Mr. and Mrs. Melancthon Smith, M. de Saint Glain, Mi*. Philip Schuyler, Baron Steu- 
ben, Mrs. Swan, General Schuyler, Mrs. Symmes, Sir John and Lady Temple, Mr. Charles Thomp- 
son, Mr. and Mrs. Turnbull, Mr. and Mrs. Van Home, Mr. C. Van Home, Miss Betsey A. Van 
Home, Miss Cornelia Van Horne, Colonel Varick and Mrs. Varick, Cornelius Verplanck, Mr. and 
Mrs. Robert Watts, Mr. John Watts, Sir. and Lady Llary Watts, Mv. and Misses White,. Dr. Wil- 
liamson, Dr. Witherspoon, Colonel Wadsworth, ]\Ir. Wingate, Judge Yates. / 



100 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

and was married to lier on the thirteenth of March, 1786, when 
she was in her sixteenth year. 

John Adams soon after wrote to him a letter of congratula- 
tion. "I heard some time ago," he says, "of your marriage with 
the daughter of my old friend Mr. Alsop, as well as of the mar- 
riage of Mr. Gerry,* and of both with the more pleasm^e, probably, 
as a good work of the same kind, for connecting Massachusetts and 
New York in the bonds of love, was going on here. Last Sunday, 
under the right reverend sanction of the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury and the Bishop of St. Asaph, were married Mr. Smith and 
Miss Adams. It will be unnatural if federal purposes are not an- 
swered by these intermarriages." 

As all executive and legislative functions were at this time dis- 
charged by Congress, its sessions were in some sense permanent, 
for as the term of one Congress expired that of the next would 
begin. Mr. King therefore rarely found time to visit his constitu- 
ents, but resided habitually in the metropolis, with Mr. Alsop, who 
had long been a widower, with no other child than his daughter 
Mary. His house was number thirty-eight South street, as that part 
of William street was then called which extended from Maiden Lane 
to Old Slip. It was near the corner of Maiden Lane, to which there 
was an opening through the yard, and when the name of William 
was given to the whole street the number was changed to sixty-two. 

Mrs. King was remarkable for personal beauty ; her face was 
oval, with finely formed nose, mouth, and chin, blue eyes, a clear 
brunette complexion, black hair, and fine teeth. Her movements 
were at once graceful and gracious, and her voice musical. She 

* Mr. Elb ridge Gerry was elected to the Congress in 1'784, and though then but forty yeara 
of age, -was the oldest member of that body. He and Mr. King were married about the same 
time. Mr. Gerry's wife was the daughter of Mr. James Thompson, and was a woman as distin- 
guished by her beauty and personal worth as by her family and social connections. She sur^ 
vived her husband many years, and died at a very advanced age, in Connecticut, in 1849. 



THE YEAH OF SUSPENSE. 101 

had been carefully educated, and lier quick faculties seized advan- 
tage from every opportunity of cultivation. All the indulgence of 
a parent whoUy devoted to her as an only child was lavished upon 
her without spoiling her character. 

General Armstrong in one of his letters refers to his own cir- 
cumstances at this time, and to some of the leading characters in 
society. " I am not yet married, nor likely to be so," he says, allu- 
ding to a report on this subject which had reached General Gates ; 
" the truth is, that I am too poor to marry a woman without some 
fortune, and too proud to marry any woman I know who possesses 
one. In this dilemma, till my cii'cumstances change, or other ob- 
jects present themselves, I must even keep along in the cheerless 
solitary road I am in. 

" Colonel Smith has returned from St. James's. He brings with v^ 
him a wife and child — the whole profit of his legation. He has 
parted with some of his characteristical buckram, that is, his exter- 
nal manner is more easy than it was, but I fear he has exchanged 
it for a coxcombry of a worse sort — that of the mind. He is now 
a very profound pohtician, and indeed so much so that he is ofteji 
quite unintelligible. This I regret, for I think well of his honor 
and principles. His wife, who is a daughter of Mr. Adams, is the 
negative being described in Mrs. Shandy. 

" The baron passed the winter at the same lodging-house with 
me. To this he has come at last. The ' Louvre ' is dismantled and 
deserted, and he is once more upon the justice and generosity 
of the public. But the public has neither, and he has only to 
choose between starving here and begging in Europe. This is 
calamitous to him and disgraceful to us. He is now with North, 
who, by the way, is married to Duane's daughter, and exiled to the 
Mohawk." 

The bai'on referred to by Armstrong was Steuben, who had 



102 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

liired a house in tlie neigliborliood of tlie city, named it "Tlie 
Louvi'e," and filled it witli " books and charts, wines, brandies, and 
cigars," for bis own enjoyment and that of bis old companions in 
arms. Poverty bad compelled tbe veteran to surrender it, and be 
would not bave felt a deeper mortification in yielding to an enemy 
in tbe field.'"' 

Tbe gayeties of ISTew York society in 1787 and 1788 were 
enhanced by a lai'ge number of weddings in tbe more fashionable 
cu'cles.f It was said that not less than a dozen of members of 
Congress were united in these years to as many of the fascinating 
young women of the city. Among them were Mr. John Yining, 
of Delaware, who married Miss Seton ; Mr. John Page, of Yu'ginia, 
who married Miss Lowther ; Dr. Hugh Williamson, of North Caro- 

* President Duer relates an amusing anecdote of the baron, connected witli the famous 
" Doctors' Mob," produced, a year or two before this time, by the careless exposure of a " subject," 
A'om the dissecting-room of the hospital. It became necessary to call out the militia to put down 
the rioters, and many of the principal citizens repaired to the assistance of the civil authority. 
Some of them were severely wounded ; Mr. Jay received a serious wound in the head, and the 
Baron de Steuben was struck by a stone, which knocked him down, inflicted a flesh wound upon 
his forehead, and wrought a sudden change in the compassionate feelings he had previously en- 
tertained towards the rabble. At the moment of receiving it he was earnestly remonstrating 
with Governor Clinton against ordering the militia to fire on " the people," but as soon as he was 
hit his benevolence deserted him, and as he fell he lustily cried out, "Fire, Governor ! Jire I" He 
was carried into Mi'. Daer's house, and there being no surgeon at hand, Ladj' Kitty stanched 
his wound and bound up his head. After his departure Governor Clinton provoked the laughter 
of the company by recalling these circumstances. 

\ Miss Montgomery, in her " Kcminiscences of Wilmington," recites an anecdote connected 
with a wedding at the Rutgers mansion, which illustrates the topographical condition of the city 
at this time. " On one of my grandfather's visits to Colonel Rutgers, a wealthy trader, whose 
descendants now have large possessions there, he was, after the settlement of their accounts, in- 
vited to dine, and, at the dinner, requested to be one of the guests at a bridal supj^er to be given 
to Colonel Rutgers' daughter, on her return from a journey, that evening. As the vessel was to 
sail at daylight the next morning, he wished to be ex-cused. Ilowever, the invitation was so ])ress- 
ing that it was accepted, and he did not leave until after eleven o'clock, when a servant was of- 
fered to conduct him through a huckleberry swamp on the way to his lodgings. As it was bright 
moonlight, and he was familiar with the path, this civility was declined; but when about half 
the way was accomplished, the moon disappeared, and, losing his path, my grandfather wandered 
amidst thorns and briers till day dawned, his clothes almost torn off. Tliis swamp was long age 
the centre of New York." 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 103 

Una, wlio married Miss Aptliorp, and Mi\ Joslma Leney, of Maryland, 
wlio married Mss Mcliolson. Another of these gentlemen, so nn 
faithful to their pledges, or to expectations which were cherished 
among their fair constituents, was Colonel William Few, of Georgia, 
who in the answer which he made to a' letter on the subject, de- 
clared that if the Georgians, when they saw how very fortunate he 
had been, did not wilhngly excuse him, and admit that the best of 
them would have yielded to the same temptation, he would resign 
his seat in the Congress and retu'e to private life. Discussions 
meanwhile were going on as to what place should become the seat 
of government, and some humorist availed himself of that consider- 
ation in drawing up the following 

'' letitiou j(jf %m\\^ f itMcs. 

" To the Jionorable the Delegates of the United States, in Congress assem- 
bled : The petition of the Young Ladies of Portsmouth, Boston, 
Neioport, Neiu London, Amhoy, Newcastle, Williamslurgh, Wilming- 
ton, Charleston and Savannah, most ardently sheweth, 

" That your petitioners possess the quahties of youth, health, 
and beauty, in an eminent degree; that, notwithstanding these 
advantages, they see, with great pain, buj; little prospect of getting 
good husbands, owing to the passion the beaus have of going 
abroad and marrying in other countries, thereby leaving a great 
disproportion between the sexes at home. 

" That population is the true source of national wealth and 
power ; that in all countries jDopulation increases in proportion 
as marriages are frequent; that without marriage even the object 
of the Almighty in creating man must be defeated, and his first 
and great command disobeyed. 

" That your petitioners have been informed of the many mar- 
riages that have taken place in New York since vour residence in 



104 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

that city, and tliat even some of your own members Lave, to their 
great honor, become husbands ; that delegates in Congress ought 
to be all bachelors, and a new election ordered in consequence of 
marriage — domestic duty being a good excuse from public service ; 
that, with due deference to their New York sisters, they cannot 
allow them any just preference in the requisite qualities to make 
the married state happy ; that, as the first motive for appointing a 
Congress was to promote the welfare of humanity, they presume 
the daughters as well as the sons of America have an equal right 
to a participation of the blessings arising therefrom. 

" That for these reasons your petitioners earnestly request you 
annually to remove the seat of federal government into another 
state, until, in due rotation, it shall have been in all the states, 
leaving Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York the three last upon 
the hst, you having already resided in each of their capitals. 

" That if your petitioners' request be granted, they hope, from 
the number of foreigners and other fine fellows who keep them- 
selves in the sunshine of preferment, as well as from your own 
body, to have at least a chance of bringing their accomplishments 
and good qualities into their destined use, and of thereby improv- 
ing as well as augmenting society. 

"And your petitioners, as by inclination prompted, will ever 
wish," &c., <fec., &c. 

In this period Edward Livingston was married to Miss Mary 
Mclvers, Nicholas Brevoort to IVIiss Blair, and Mr. Turnbull to JVIiss 
Susan Van Home (described in preceding pages by Miss Kebecca 
Franks) ; and in other parts of the country, Thomas H. Perkins 
to Miss Sally Elliot, Charles Pinckney to Miss Mary Laurens, Eich- 
ard Caton to Miss Polly Carroll, Dr. Casper Wistar to Miss Mar- 
shall, Noah Webster to Miss Greenleaf, Sir Peyton Skipwith to 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 105 

Miss Millar, Peter S. Du Ponceau to Miss Anne Perry, Thomas 
Lee, son of Eichard Henry Lee, to Mildred, daughter of Augustine 
Washington, and niece of George Washington, and Richard D. 
Spaight, late member of the Federal Convention, from North Caro- 
lina, to Miss Mary Leech, "a young lady," says the Columbian 
Magazine for that year, "whose amiable character and beautiful 
person, added to her extensive fortune, promise much felicity to 
this truly worthy pair." 

VII. 

The Year of Suspense drew near its close. Before the first of 
July, 1Y88, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Con- 
necticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hamp- 
shire, and Virginia, in the order in which they are here named, 
had ratified the Constitution, and the truly respectable portion of 
the people, with almost entire unanimity, hailed the result with the 
sincerest joy and the most sanguine anticipations as to its ultimate 
influence. All the larger maritime towns saw in the organization 
of a vigorous national government, with ample powers for the reg- 
ulation of commerce, assurance of their prosperity, and they were 
the first to celebrate the decision of the people, with every demon- 
stration suitable to so grateful an occasion. Boston, Baltimore,* 
and Charleston, led the way, and Philadelphia, New York, and 
other cities, followed in quick succession. 

* In the procession of the people of Baltimore was a ship called " The Federalist," -which was, 
after the celebration, presented to Washington, who, in a letter to the committee, dated at Mount 
Vernon on the eighth of June, says : " Captain Barney has just arrived here in the miniature ship 
called ' The Federalist,' and has done me the honor to offer that beautiful work to me as a pres- 
ent from you. I pray you, gentlemen, to accept the warmest expressions of my sensibility for 
this specimen of American ingenuity, in which the exactitude of the proportions, the neatness of 
the workmanship, and the elegance of the decorations (which make your present fit to be pre- 
served in a cabinet of curiosities), while they exhibit the skill and taste of the artist, demonstrate 
that the Americans are not inferior to any people whatever in the use of mechanical instruments 
and the art of ship-buUding." 

14 



A7^ 

106 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

The celebration in Philadelpliia was planned and dii-ected in a 
large degree by the celebrated wit, Francis HopMnson, in whose 
Works nearly a hundred pages are occupied with its description. 
The day selected was the foui'th of July. The rising sun was 
saluted with the ringing of bells and the discharge of cannon. 
Ten ships along the river in front of the city represented the ten 
ratifying states, each gayly dressed in flags and streamers, with ap- 
propriate inscri]3tions emblazoned in gold. At half after nine o'clock 
the grand procession began to move. The Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, the French Alliance, the Definitive Treaty of Peace, the Con- 
vention of the States, the Constitution, the New Era, were repre 
sented by some of J;he principal citizens, in emblematical costumes. 
The Constitution was personified by a lofty monumental car, in the 
form of an eagle, drawn by six horses. Chief Justice McKean, 
vdth Judges Atlee and Eush, in their official robes, were seated in 
this car, bearing the Constitution, framed and fixed upon a staff, 
which was crowned with the cap of liberty, and bore as a legend, 
" The People," in golden letters. A carriage drawn by ten white 
horses, supported the model of a Federal Edifice, the "New Eoof " 
of which was upheld by thirteen columns, three, inscribed with the 
names of the states which had not yet ratified the Constitution, 
being unfinished. The pilots, ship carpenters, boat builders, and 
other trades connected with navigation, surrounded the federal ship 
Union, mounting twenty guns, and with a crew of twenty-five men. 
A sheet of canvas, tacked along the water line, extended over a 
light frame, and was painted to represent the sea, conceahng the 
carriage on which the vessel was drawn. The procession, including 
«fll the trades, many of which were occupied with their appropriate 
(Jlities, the military, and the public functionaries, embraced more 
than five thousand persons, and having traversed the city, it pro- 
ceeded to Union Green, Bush Hill, where a crowd of more than 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 10? 

• 

seventeen thousand was collected to observe tlie remaining pro- 
ceedings. While the procession was moving, the printers struck 
off and distributed from their car among the people the followino- 
ode, which was written by HopMnson: 

Oh, for a muse of fire ! to mount the skies, 

And to a listening world proclaim, 
Behold ! behold an empire rise ! — 
An era new. Time, as he flies 

Hath entered in the book of Fame." 
On Alleghany's towering head 
Echo shall stand, the tidings spread, 

And o'er the lakes and misty floods around 

" An Era New " resound. 

See, where Columbia sits alone, 
And from her star-bespangled throne 
Beholds the gay procession pass along, 
And hears the trumpet and the choral song ! 

She hears her sons rejoice, 
Looks into future time, and sees 
The numerous blessings Heaven decrees, 

And with her plaudit joins the general voice. 

" 'T is done ! 't is done ! my sons," she cries, 

"In war are valiant and in council wise ; 

Wisdom and valor shall my rights defend 

And o'er my vast domain these rights extend ; 

Science shall flourish, genius stretch her win"- 

In native strains Columbia's muses sino-. 

Wealth crown the arts, and Justice cleanse her scales. 

Commerce her ponderous anchor weigh 

Wide spread her sails — 

And in far distant seas her flag display." 

Hail to this festival ! all hail the day !— 

Columbia's standard on her roof display 

And let the people's motto ever be ^ 

" United thus, and thus united, free ! " 

At Union Green an oration was dehvered from the Federal 
Edifice by James WHson, who had distmguished himself in the 



108 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

convention for forming tlie constitution and afterwards in defend- 
ing it before the convention of Pennsylvania. Tlie entire proceed 
ings were marked by tbe utmost decorum. The streets and the 
windows and roofs of houses were crowded with spectators, but 
there was not an accident or the slightest disturbance of any kind 
during the day. " It was remarkable," writes a spectator to a friend 
at ElLzabethtown, New Jersey, " that every countenance wore an 
air of dignity as well as of pleasure. Every tradesman's boy in 
the procession seemed to consider himself as a principal in the busi- 
ness. Eank for a while forgot its claims, and agriculture, com- 
merce and manufactures, with the learned and mechanical profes- 
si-^s, seemed to acknowledge, by united harmony and respect, that 
they were all necessary to each other, and all useful in a cultivated 
society. These circumstances distinguished this procession from the 
processions in Europe, which are commonly instituted in honor of 
single persons. The military alone partake of the pleasure of those 
exhibitions. Farmers and tradesmen are either deemed unworthy 
of such connections, or are introduced like horses or buildings, only 
to add to the strength or length of the j^rocession. Such is the 
difference between the effects of republican and monarchical govern- 
ment upon the minds of men." 

The same writer mentions particularly that the clergy formed 
a conspicuous part of the procession, manifesting by their attend- 
ance a sense of the connection between good government and reli- 
gion. There were seventeen, and they marched arm-in-arm to illus- 
trate the general union. Care was taken to associate ministers of 
the most dissimilar opinions with each other, to display the promo- 
tion of Christian charity by free institutions. " The rabbi of the 
Jews, with a minister of the gospel on each side, was a most delight- 
ful sight." It exhibited the political equality, not only of Christian 
denominations, but of worthy men of every belief. 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. 109 

In New York tlie celebration was on the twenty-tlikd of tlie 
same month. — ^three weeks after. The state had not yet accepted 
the Constitution, and its friends probably expected that this impos- 
ing demonstration would have some effect upon the convention 
which was debating the subject at Poughkeepsie. The proceedings 
were arranged by Major I'Enfant.* The morning was ushered in by 
a federal salute of thirteen guns, from a ship moored off the Bowl- 
ing Green. The procession was formed soon after in " The Fields," 
where stands the present City HaU, and marched down Whitehall 
street to Great Dock street, thence through Hanover square, Queen 
and Chatham streets, to the Bowery, and finally to a meadow near 
the country residence of Nicholas Bayard, where Broadway now 
intersects Grand street. Here a splendid pavilion, eight hundred 
feet long and six hundred feet wide, had been erected, with a vast 
dome, on the top of which stood Fame, with her trumpet, announ- 
cing a new era, and displaying the standard of the United States, 
and a roll of parchment on which were inscriptions in large char- 
acters referring to the Declaration of Independence, the Alliance with 
France, and the Definitive Treaty of Peace. By the side of Fame 
was the American Eagle, with extended wings, and over six of the 
principal pillars of the colonnade in the centre of the pavilion were 
the arms of the several nations which had recognized our independ- 
ence — France, Spain, Sweden, Prussia, Holland, and Mexico — and 
above these their respective flags. "Within, from an elevated semi- 
circular table, at which were seated the President and members of 
Congress, the heads of departments in the federal and state govern- 

* Major I'Enfant was a native of France, -who arrived in this country about the year 1780. i< 
His first public employment after the war was the alteration of the old City Hall, on the site 
now occupied by the Custom House, into "Federal Hall," for the new government, iu 1789. 
He afterwards designed a magnificent residence for Robert Morris, in Philadelphia, in which, 
before it was half finished, the great financier sunk all his fortune. He is best known now as 
the author of the " Plan of the City of Washington," and the architect of some of its buildings. 
He died about ISlt 

t 



^ 



110 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

ments, foreign ministers, clergy, and other guests, radiated a large 
number of tables, with plates for six thousand persons. In many- 
respects the procession resembled that in Philadelphia. Colonel 
Kichard Piatt was chief marsha^ and was assisted by Colonel Mor- 
gan Lewis and Majors Nicholas Fish, William North and Aquila 
Giles. The various trades appeared on cars, engaged with their 
several occupations. The coopers were setting up and hooping a 
huge cask, emblematical of the Constitution. The carpenters were 
erecting the tenth column, inscribed " New York," of the federal 
temple, and two prostrate columns represented other states which 
had not yet accepted the Constitution. The upholsterers were pre- 
pai'ing a chair of state for the fii'st President, and the coach mak- 
ers were building him a superb chariot. The printers, preceded 
by Hugh Gaine, immortalized in the satirical verses of Freneau, 
were striking off and distributing patriotic songs, and a joro- 
gramme of the day's proceedings. On the car of the brewers 
were hogsheads and tuns, decorated with festoons of hop-vines, 
and on the top of one of them, in a closely-fitting dress of flesh- 
colored silk, a handsome boy, representing Bacchus, his head gar- 
landed with grapes, hops, and barley. At the head of the law- 
yers were John Lawrence, John Cozine, and Robert Troup. In 
the Philological Society appeared Josiah Ogden Hoffman, its Presi- 
dent, Noah Webster, its Secretary, and William Dunlaj), who bore 
its standard. With a large number of farmers, were Nicholas 
Cruger, driving six oxen, John Watts, holding a plough, and the 
Baron Poelnitz, attending a threshing-machine. The most inter- 
esting object of all was the federal ship Hamilton — a thii'ty-two 
gun frigate, thirty feet long and twelve feet -wide, with every pro- 
portion and appointment complete. She was manned by about 
forty seamen and marines, with the usual complement of officers, 
and commanded by the veteran Commodore Nicholson, who dis- 



THE YEAR OF SUSPENSE. Ill 

played at lier mast-liead tlie same broad pennant under wliicli lie 
had foiiglit victoriously upon the sea. After leaving " The Fields," 
in passing Liberty street she made a signal for a pilot, and re- 
ceived one, and on arriving before Mr. Constable's house, at the 
foot of Broadway, Mrs. Edgar came to a window and presented the 
commodore a suit of rich silk colors, in acknowledgment of which 
the yards were instantly manned and the crew gave three cheers. 
When passiQg Old Slip a Spanish government ship saluted her with 
thirteen guns, which she returned with as much promptness as if she 
had been an actual man-of-war, sailing upon her proper element. 
The Hamilton was drawn by ten white horses, and during the ad- 
vance of the procession went through every nautical preparation 
and moven^ent for storms, calms, squalls, and sudden shiftings of 
the wind. When she reached " Bayard's Farm " the crew took in 
sail and anchored, and the officers " went on shore to dine," while 
ample messes were sent on board for the seamen and marines. At 
four o'clock signal was made for unmooring, by a second salute of 
thirteen guns, and she proceeded to the place whence she started, 
opposite the Bowling Green, where she arrived at half past five 
o'clock, amidst the acclamations of thousands. The decorations of 
the societies, professions and trades in this immense procession were 
in all cases rich, tasteful, and apjpropriate, and the general effect 
probably surpassed that of any similar display ever made in New 
York except that on the completion of the Erie Canal, nearly half 
a century afterward. In the evening there was a display of fire- 
works, under the direction of Colonel Bauman, post-master of the 
city and commandant of the artillery, " whose constitutional irasci- 
l^ility," says President Duer, " was exceedingly provoked by the 
moon, which shone with pertinacious brilliancy, as if in mockery 
of his feebler lights." 

These proceedings were on Monday, and on the following Sat- 



112 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Jrday, about nine o'clock in tlie evening, news arrived in the city 
of the acceptance of the new Constitution by the State Convention 
at Poughkeepsie. " The bells," says a contemporary writer, " were 
immediately set a-ringing, and fi'om the fort and the federal ship 
Hamilton, there were repeated discharges of artillery. The mer- 
chants at the coffee-house testified their joy by huzzas, and a large 
body of citiziens, headed by a number of the first characters, went 
to the houses of the city members of the Convention, and gave three 
cheers, as a testimony of their approbation of the glorious event 
brought about by theii* united, unremitted, and toilsome exertions. 
In short, a general joy ran through the whole town, and several of 
those who were of different sentiments drank freely of the federal 
bowl, and declared they were now perfectly reconciled to the new 
Constitution." 




m f ) I ;. I ':'. ., TEITIT I^ TIT ^ ' IlCH M G- 



THE TEIUMPHAL PROGRESS. 



The Congress in New York had been barely kept alive during 
tbe winter of 1788-89. Sometimes not half a dozen members 
remained in the city, and a quorum was rarely assembled. All 
thoughts and all hopes were centered in the new organization of 
affairs, which the splendid genius of Hamilton, the calm and judi- 
cial logic of Jay, and the invincible common sense of Madison, had 
at length made triumphant. For with whatever power and ear- 
nestness the claims of the Constitution had been asserted in differ- 
ent parts of the country, it was not difficult to perceive that the 
masterly expositions of the separate and common interests, in " The 
Federalist," reprinted in many of the larger towns, and entering 
into nearly all the spoken or written arguments for the Constitu- 
tion, in every state, had been the great means of securing to the 
nation what the abilities and patriotism of her most illustrious citi- 
zens had conceived and evolved — ^this unapproachable model of a 
free and stable government. 

As soon as the necessary majority of the states had transmitted 

to Congress their acceptance of the Constitution, an act was passed 

for the choice of a President and Vice President of the Kepublic ; 

and Washington, who had commanded the army and presided in 

15 



114 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tlie Convention, as if by tlie all-disposing election of tlie Sovereign 
Ruler of the world, was now, by tlie common sense, affection, and 
reverence, made vital by the same Divine Influence, called to tlie 
higliest place in tlie completely organized nation. The sincerity 
of his natui'e was so conspicuous that no one doubted his avowed 
reluctance to be further engaged in affau's, though in the most hon- 
orable, dignified, and responsible oflace that had ever been created 
by a free people ; and it was felt that no addition could be made 
to his glory, so that his acceptance of the Presidency must be a 
consequence only of his self-sacrificing love of country ; but to this 
the whole people appealed, and when he consented, notwithstand- 
ing his advanced season of life, his increased fondness for agri«ijl- 
tural amusements, his growing love of retirement, and decided pre- 
dilection for the character of a private citizen, to hazard his former 
rej)utation, and encounter new fatigues and troubles, it was no 
longer questioned that the sublimest revolution in human history 
was successful ; that the institutions of liberty were firmly estab- 
lished ; that a new and beneficent power was inaugm^ated which 
would preserve for its authors, to the latest ages, such grateful re- 
spect as is due to the benefactors of mankind. 

IL 

The first Congi'ess under the Constitution came together very 
slowly. The day appointed for its meeting was the fourth of March, 
1789, and at morning, noon and evening on that day there was fir- 
ing of cannon and ringing of bells in the city ; but only eight sen- 
ators and thirteen representatiyes, not enough for a quorum in either 
house, made their appearance ; and though circulars were repeat- 
edly sent to the absent members it was near the end of the month 
before a sufficient number came in for one or the other branch to 
organize. This was partly owing to the desultory habits in every- 



THE TRIUMPHAL PROaRESS. 115 

tlimg connected witli federal affaii^s wMcli liad grown up under 'the 
late administration, but more largely to tlie difficulties and uncer- 
tainties of tlie means of travelling, not only in the more inaccessible 
parts of tlie country but even in tlie most populous states and on 
tlie chief routes connecting the larger towns. 

The Rev. Jeremy Belknap, the well known author of the His- 
tory of New Hampshire, and several other works, which secured to 
him a high reputation among literary men in America at the close 
of the last century, had apprenticed one of his sons to Robert Ait 
kin, a printer ^f magazines and books, in Philadelphia. He sat 
out from his home, in Dover, to visit his son, and see the world, and 
the adventures he encountered illustrate in an interesting manner the 
delays and vexa,tions of travel at that time. From Boston, on the 
twenty-seventh, he wrote back to his wife, " I am disappointed of 
my intended joui'ney to Providence, by the means of a set of Eng- 
lish factors, or something else, who, after I had engaged a passage 
for myself in the coach, went and hired the w^hole of it to them- 
selves, and the base fellow of a coachman shut me out. Your 
brother is vexed on the occasion as much as myself. Another 
coach is expected in this evening, and I have laid in for a place m 
it ; but as these stages do not go on any fixed day, but only as they 
find company, I may be detained here till Thursday : however, I 
have time enough before me — the whole month of October — at 
the end of which I hope to see you again." As the worthy pastor 
anticipated, or hoped rather, the stage-coach was again ready on 
Thui'sday morning, and he took a place in it for Providence ; but 
the illness of a " lady passenger " conlpelled them to pass the night 
at Hatch's Tavern, in Attleborough, so that they did not reach 
Providence till the next day. On the following Tuesday he sailed 
in a packet for Newport, having been detained by squally weather, 
and in that place was compelled to wait, for a favorable wind 



116 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

and a " freight of passengers," till Friday. " But before we left tlie 
harbor," he writes to Mrs. Belknap, " the wind came ahead, and we 
beat to windward (a species of sailing I never before was acquainted 
with, and never wish to be again*), till we found it impossible to 
weather Point Judith, and then we returned to port. Saturday 
morning, with three more passengers, seven in all, we sailed once 
more, with a fair wind, and had a very pleasant passage uj) the 
Sound, in a very swift sailing sloop, with every desirable accommo 
dation for eating, drinking, and sleeping." Having passed four 
days in New York, where he enjoyed himself very much, on the 
afternoon of Thursday, the thirteenth of October, he crossed over 
to Paulus Hook, about sunset, to be ready to start for Philadelphia 
in the " New Flying Diligence " the next morning. " Between three 
and four o'clock," he writes, " we set off in the stage, rode nine 
miles, to Bergen Neck, and then crossed a ferry, which brought us 
to "Woodbridge. Just before we reached the second ferry, we per- 
ceived the dawn of day, and when we had ridden two miles from 
it, the sun rose, so that we had ridden sixteen miles and crossed two 
ferries before sunrise, besides shifting horses twice. The third stage 
brought us to Brunswick, where we breakfasted. We here crossed 
the Karitan, in a scow, open at both ends, to receive and discharge 
the carriage, without unharnessing or dismounting ; and the scow 
was pulled across the river by a rope. We passed through Prince- 
ton about noon, and got to Trenton to dinner ; then passed the 
Delaware in another scow, which was navigated only by setting 
poles ; drove thirty miles over a plain, level country, at a great rate, 
and arrived at Philadelphia just at sunset." He adds, " I sent for 
Josey to the inn where the stage put up, and the dear child was 
overjoyed, and shed tears at seeing me ; they had heard of my ar- 

* In another letter, referring to this " beating to windward," he says " it made me downright 
seasick." 



THE TRIUMPHAL PEOGEESS. 117 

rival in New York, and tlie family talk had ever since been about 
me ; a lodging was prepared for me at Mr. Aitken's, and I was re- 
ceived with all the cordiality of an intimate friend." This was 
three and a half years before the meeting of the first Congress, 
but facilities for travelling had not increased much in that period.* 
Phihp Freneau describes in a satire of three cantos the " Jour- 
ney from Philadelphia to New York, by way of Burlington and 
South Amboy ; " and M. Brissot de Warville presents a particular 
account of his passage between the same cities, in " a kind of open 
wagon, hung with double curtains, of leather and woollen" — car- 
riages " which keep up the idea of equality, the member of Congress 
riding beside the shoemaker who elected him, in fraternity." He 
also gives us in his amiable way a chapter of adventures from Bos- 
ton to New York, both by the land route and the sea. He makes 
the best of every thing, but does not show that he had a very com- 
fortable time, in the wagons or in the boats. On one occasion he 
says, " We left the place where we had slept at four o'clock in the 
morning, in a carriage without springs. A Frenchman who was 
with me began, at the first jolt, to curse the carriage, the driver, 
and the country. ' Let us wait a little,' said I, ' before we form a 

* Public conveyances 'were almost unknown except between a few of the principal cities. The 
Continental Congress had lately authorized the Postmaster General to contract for the transmis- 
sion of the mail over the great route along the sea coast, by a line of stage-wagons, to carry pas- 
sengers also ; but this scheme was as yet very imperfectly executed, so that members derived 
from it but little advantage in their journeys to New York. To Philadelphia and Boston the 
mails were sent three times a week in the summer, and twice a week in the winter. The " Bos- 
ton, Albany, and Philadelphia General Stage Office," was kept by Samuel Fraunces — more 
famous in his day than even Niblo, half a century afterward, as an almost universal caterer for 
the public entertainment — in Cortlandt street; and stages for Boston started every Monday, 
Wednesday, and Friday j» for Albany every Monday and Thursday ; and for PhiladeljDliia, from 
Paulus Hook, twice every day, except Saturdays and Sundays, when they left but once a day. 
The fare, from Paulus Hook to Philadelphia, was two dollars a passenger (only half what is now 
charged on the railroad!) or, by express, at eight miles an hour, one shilling per mile; or ten 
miles an hour, eighteen pence per mile. At the early season of the year in which the Congress 
was summoned to assemble, the roads in many places, and especially the fords of rivers, were 
frequently made impassable by floods. 



118 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

judgment ; every custom lias its cause : doul3tless tliere is some 
reason why tliis kind of carriage is preferred to one liung witli 
springs.' In fact, by tlie time we liad run tliirty miles, among the 
rocks, we were convinced tliat a carriage with springs would very 
soon have been overset and broken." In the same spiiit he praises 
the inns ; " you will not go into one," he says, " without meeting 
with neatness, decency, and dignity. The table is served by a 
maiden, well dressed, and pretty, by a pleasant mother whose age 
has not effaced the agreeableness of her features, and by men who 
have that air of respectability which is inspired by the idea of 
equality, and are not ignoble and base, like the greater part of our 
own tavern keepers." The Marquis de Chastellux, while travelling 
in the same region, was not so well satisfied ; he contradicts indeed 
nothing which is advanced by M. de Warville, but avers that while 
the tables of the sitting-rooms were covered with the writings of 
Milton, Addison, and Richardson, the cellars contained "neither 
brandy, nor wine, nor even rum." The neophyte of democracy was 
every where attentive to the young women, and he finds the tedi- 
ousness of the wagon beguiled by frequent sights, all through Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut, of " fair girls, either driving a carriage, 
or alone on horseback, galloping boldly, with an elegant hat on the 
head, a white apron, and a calico gown : usages which prove at once 
the early cultivation of their reason, (since they are trusted so 
young to themselves,) the safety of the roads, and the general inno- 
cence of manners." Coming to New York by water* he was de- 

* " I ought to say one word of tlie packet boats of this part of America, and of the facilities 
■whicli they offer. Though, iu ray opinion, it is more advantageous and often less expensive to 
go by land, yet I owe some praises to the cleanliness and good order observable in these boats. 
The one which I was in contained fourteen beds, ranged in two rows, one above the other, and 
every one had its little window. The chamber was well aired, so that one did not breathe that 
nauseous air which infects the packets of the English Channel. It was well varnished, and the 
provisions were good. There is not a little town on all this coast which is without this kind of 
»-essels, going to New York. They have all the same neatness, the same embellishments, the 



THE TRIUMPHAL PROaRESS. 119 

tained "by contrary winds, but assures us that tlie voyage from New- 
port is not unfrequently performed in twenty hours, and that the 
price of passage is Ibut six dollars. 

Miss Montgomery states that the journey from Wilmington to 
New York was so great an undertaking that few persons attempt- 
ed it, and they were regarded as " travellers," Her grandfather's 
business often requii'ed his attention there, and on his return crowds 
of villagers would come to hear the news and accounts of all the 
wonders he had seen in that astonishing city. 

III. 

A suFFiCEENT number of members having appeared, the House 
of Kepresentatives at length on the thirtieth of March proceeded 
to organize itself, and on the following week the Senate was also 
ready for business. This first Congress under the Constitution em- 
braced a large portion of the talents, experience and respectability 
of the country. John Langdon, Ohver Ellsworth, Charles Carroll, 
Richard Henry Lee, and Ralph Izard, were in the Senate, and 
among the members of the House were Elbridge Gerry, Roger 
Sherman, Jeremiah Wadsworth, EHas Boudinot, Frederick A. Muh- 
lenberg, James Madison, and young Fisher Ames, soon to be ac- 
knowledged the greatest of American orators. 

The Continental Congress had sat in the old City Hall, at the 
corner of Wall and Nassau streets, where now stands the Custom 
House. This building had been erected nearly a century, and in 
rfc had been held the sessions of the Provincial Assembly, the Su- 
preme Court, the Admii-alty Court, and the Mayor's Court. Here 
too had been the city prison, and in Broad street, nearly opposite, 
had stood the whipping post and the pillory. The City HaU, in- 
same convenience. You may be assured there is nothing like them in the old countries." — New 
Travels in America, c. iv. 



120 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

deed, had been tlie centre of all important business, in legislation, 
administration, and politics; it was also the principal resort of 
the lovers of literature, as it contained the public library ; and it 
served the purposes of the Athenian sto», for gossips, newsmongers, 
and speculators. Anxious for the proper accommodation of the 
various branches of the federal government, and not without ex- 
pectations that a liberal course on her part might cause New York 
to be made the permanent capital of the nation, several wealthy 
citizens contributed thirty-two thousand dollars for the purpose of 
remodeling, repau'ing and renovating this building, which, when 
completed, received the new name of Federal Hall, and was placed 
by the City Council at the disposal of Congress. 

The appearance of Federal HaU was for that period very im- 
posing, and its front, toward Broad street, was particularly admir- 
ed. The basement story was in the Tuscan style, with seven open- 
ings, and four massive pillars in the centre supported heavy arches, 
above which rose four Doric columns. The cornice was ingeni- 
ously divided to admit thirteen stars in the metopes, which with 
the eagle and other iusignia in the pediment, and the sculptures of 
thirteen arrows surrounded by olive branches over each window, 
marked it as a building set apart for national purposes. The en- 
trance on Broad street opened into a large and plainly furnished 
room, to which every one had free access, and beyond this was the 
vestibule, which led, in front, to the Hall of the Representatives, and 
through arches on each side, by a pubhc stairway on the right, and 
a private one on the left, to the Senate chamber and the galleries. 
The vestibule was paved with marble, and was very lofty, and 
elegantly finished. The lower part was of a light rough stone, which 
supported a handsome iron gallery, and the upper part, which was in 
a less massive style, was Hghted from a richly ornamented dome. The 
Hall of the Representatives was sixty-one feet long, fifty-eight feet 



THE TKIUMPHAL PROGRESS. 121 

wide, and tliirty-six feet liigli, and had an arclied ceiling, increasing 
its lieiglit in tlie centre about ten feet more. Its form was sligMly 
octangular, and on its sides were niches for statues. The windows 
were large, and placed sixteen feet from the floor, the space below 
being finished with a plain wainscot, interrupted only by four fii'e- 
places, above which were Ionic columns and pilasters. In the pan- 
els between the windows were trophies, carved, and the letters 
U. S. in a cipher, surrounded with laurel. The speaker's chair 
was on an elevated platform, opposite the principal entrance. Each 
member had a separate chair and desk. There were two galleries 
in front of the speaker's seat — ^the lower one projecting fifteen feet, 
and the upper one, less spacious — both supported without pillars. 
These were intended for the accommodation of the friends of the 
members. The pubhc were admitted only to an area on the floor 
outside the bar. There were three small doors, for common use, 
besides the larger and less convenient entrance. The curtains in 
this room were of light blue damask, and the chairs of the mem- 
bers were covered with the same material. 

The Senate chamber was approached by the stairs on the east 
side of the vestibule, through an ante-chamber, nineteen feet wide 
and forty-eight feet long, finished with Tuscan pilasters, and com- 
municating with the iron gallery already mentioned, as well as with 
the galleries of the Hall of the Representatives. This room was 
forty feet long, thirty feet wide, and twenty feet high, with an 
arched ceiling ; it had three windows at each end, those toward 
Wall street opening into an external gallery, twelve feet deep, and 
guarded by an iron railing. In this gallery the President of the. 
United States was expected to take his oath of office. The Senate 
chamber was decorated with hght and graceful pilasters, with capi- 
tals, devised by the architect, Major I'Enfant, composed of foliage, 
in the midst of which appeared radiant stars, and below each was 
16 



122 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

a small medallion exliibiting tlie initials, TJ. S. The ceiling was of 
a light blue, with a sun and thirteen stars in the centre. The fire- 
places in both halls were of a highly polished variegated American 
marble. The President's chair was elevated three feet above the 
floor, and was under a rich canopy of crimson damask. The cur- 
tains of the windows and the coverings of the chairs of the sena- 
tors were of the same color. The chairs of the members in both 
halls, were arranged in semicircles, and the floors in both were cov- 
ered with handsome carpets. The capitol contained several smaller 
rooms, for committees, a hbrary, and other purposes. 

Before the alteration of the building the room which had been 
occupied by the old Congress contained full length portraits of the 
King and Queen of France, presented to America by Louis the 
Sixteenth. These are not mentioned among the decorations which 
were now retained. 

ly 

The first business after the organization of the two houses, oi. 
the sixth of April, was the opening and counthig of the votes for 
President of the United States. It was found that Washington 
had received sixty-nine, the whole number cast, but that the votes 
for the second candidate were so scattered that there was barely a 
majority for Mr. Adams, who, however, having next the highest 
number, became Vice President. The same day Charles Thomp- 
son, who had been perpetual Secretary to the Continental Congress, 
was appointed to inform George Washington of his election to the 
Presidency, and Sylvanus Bourne was at the same time selected to 
convey to John Adams information of his being chosen Vice Pre- 
sident. The following morning^' they left New York, one for Vii'- 

* On the seventh of April, John Armstrong -wrote to General Gates, from New York : "All 
the -world here are busy in collecting flo-wers and sweets of every kind to amuse and delight the 
President in his approach and on his arrival. Even Eoger Shei-man has set his head at work tt 



THE TKIUMPHAL PKOGRESS. 123 

ginia, and the otlier for Massacliusetts ; and, on tlie fifteenth, a joint 
committee of tlie two houses was chosen to make suitable arrange- 
ments for the reception of the President and Vice President in the 
metropolis. 

Y. 

Me. Ada]\is was the first to receive official information of his elec- 
tion, and the first to arrive in New York. At ten o'clock on the 
morning of the twelfth of April, he left his residence in Braintree, 
and was escorted to Boston by a troop of horse, from Roxbury. As he 
approached the city the bells were rung, and amidst the shouts of an 
immense crowd of people he was conducted to the house of Governor 
Hancock, where he partook of a collation, with the principal ma- 
gistrates and citizens. His arrival and departm^e were signalized 
by federal salutes, which were repeated at all the chief places 
through which he passed, with his numerous retinue, in Massachu- 
setts and Connecticut. At Hartford the manufacturers gave him 
a piece of broadcloth for a suit of clothes, and the corporation of 
New Haven presented him with the freedom of the city. From 
the Connecticut line he was attended by the "Westchester Light 
Horse, mider Major Pintard, to King's Bridge, where he was met 
by the heads of departments, a great number of members of Con- 
gress, military ofigicers, and private citizens, on horseback or in car- 
riages, who conducted him, through a multitude of people to the 
house of John Jay, in the lower part of the city. 

devise some style of address more novel and dignified than "Excellency." Yet in the midst of 
this admiration, there are skeptics who doubt its propriety, and wits who amuse themselves at 
its extravagance. The first will grumble and the last will laugh, and the President should be 
prepared to meet the attacks of both with fii-mness and good nature. A caricature has already 
appeared called ' The Entry,' fuU of very disloyal and profane allusions. It represents the General 
mounted on an ass, and in the arms of his man Billy — Humphreys leading the Jack, and chant 
mg hosannas and birth-day odes. The following couplet proceeds from the mouth of the devil • 

" 'The glorious time has come to pass 
"When David shall conduct an ass.' " 



124 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

VI. 

As it liad been popularly known for several weeks before tlie 
votes of the electors were officially canvassed that Washington was 
unanimously chosen President, his preparations for entering upon 
the duties of the office were all completed before the arrival of 
Mr. Thompson at Mount Vernon, on the fourteenth of April. In 
a letter to General Knox, referring to the delay of the certificate 
of his election, he says, " As to myself this delay may be compared 
to a reprieve, for in confidence I tell you, (with the world it would 
obtain little credit,) that my movements to the seat of government 
will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who 
is going to the place of execution, so unwilling am I, in the even- 
ing of life, nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful 
abode for an ocean of difficulties." He however informed Mr. 
Thom]3son that at the end of two days he would be ready to ac- 
company him, and in the mean time paid a last visit to his venera- 
ble mother, in Fredericksburg. On coming into her presence he 
said, " The people, madam, have been pleased, with the most flat- 
tering unanimity, to elect me to the chief magistracy of the United 
States ; but before I can assume the functions of that office I have 
come to bid you an affectionate farewell. So soon as the public 
business which must necessarily be encountered in arranging a new 
government can be disposed of, I shall hasten to Virginia, and " — 
Here she interrupted him : " You will see me no more," she said ; 
*'my great age, and the disease that is rapidly apj)roaching my 
vitals, warn me that I shall not be long in this world. I trust in 
God I am somewhat prepared for a better. But go, George, fulfil 
the high destinies which Heaven appears to assign you; go, my 
son, and may that Heaven's and your mother's blessing be with 
you always.^' He was deeply affected; his head rested on the 



THE TRIUMPHAL PROaRESS. 125 

stoulder of liis aged parent, whose arm feebly yet fondly encircled 
his neck. The scene was full of the most touching sublimity. 
Both the mother and the son were dissolved in tears at the thought 
that they were embracing each other for the last time. There is 
no fame in the world more pure than that of the mother of Wash- 
ington, and no woman since the Mother of Christ has left a better 
claim to the affectionate reverence of mankind. 

In his diary he wrote on the evening of the sixteenth: "About 
ten o'clock I bade adieu to Mount Vernon, to private life, and to 
domestic felicity, and with a mind oppressed with more anxious 
and painful sensations than I have words to express, set out for 
New York, with Mr. Thompson and Colonel Humphreys, with the 
best disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its 
caU, but with less hope of answering its expectations." 

He wished to proceed to New York in the most quiet manner, 
but the iiTcpressible enthusiasm of the people all along the route 
prevented ; and the homage he received could not have been un- 
grateful to him, for he held it to be " a proof of false modesty or 
an unworthy affectation of humility to appear altogether insensible 
to the commendations of the virtuous and enlightened part of out 
species ; '^ and he added, " perhaps nothing can excite more perfect 
harmony in the soul than to have this spring vibrate in unison with 
the internal consciousness of rectitude in our intentions, and an 
humble hope of approbation from the Supreme Disposer of all 
thinojs." 

The fii'st place at which he stopped was Alexandria, where *'^ 
he was entertained at a public dinner by his neighbors and more 
immediate personal friends. " The fii^st and best of our citizens," 
said the Mayor, " must leave us ; our aged must lose their ornament, 
our youth their model, our agricultm-e its improver, our commerce 
its friend, our infant academy its protector, om' poor their bene- 



126 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

factor. . . . Farewell! Go, and make a grateful people happy: a 
people who will be doubly grateful when they contemplate this 
new sacrifice for their interests." In his reply he said, " Just after 
having bade adieu to my domestic connections, this tender proof of 
your friendship is but too well calculated to awaken still further 
my sensibility, and increase my regret at parting fi'om the enjoy- 
ments of private life. All that now remains for me is to commit 
myself and you to the care of that beneficent Being, who, on a 
former occasion, happily brought us together after a long and dis- 
tressing separation. Perhaps the same gracious Providence will 
again indulge me. But words fail me. Unutterable sensations 
must, then, be left to more expressive silence, while from an achmg 
heart I bid all my affectionate friends and kind neighbors farewell." 

He was welcomed to Maryland by a collection of citizens assem- 
bled at Georgetown, and from all the principal places along his way 
the leading inhabitants came out to meet him, and to welcome him 
with the firing of cannon, the ringing of bells, and military dis- 
plays. Every where men and women of all ages and conditions 
watched to see him as he passed along the road. Old men shed- 
ding tears as their enthusiasm was rekindled by his presence, and 
mothers holding up their infant children that they might be able 
to say when their lives should be near their ending that they had 
looked with their own eyes upon the Father of his Country. 

He arrived in Baltimore in the beginning of the evening, and 
retired from the .public supper at Grant's tavern a little after ten 
o'clock. On the following morning he was in his carriage at half- 
past five, and left the city under a discharge of cannon, and attend- 
ed, as on his entrance, by a large cavalcade of citizens, who accom- 
panied him seven miles, when, alighting, he would not permit them 
to proceed any farther, but took leave, thanking them in an affec- 
tionate manner for their politeness. 



THE TRIUMPHAL PROaHESS. 127 

At tlie frontier of Pennsylvania, early on tlie morning of tlie 
nineteenth, lie was met by two troops of cavaliy, and a large num- 
ber of citizens, at tbe head of whom were Governor Mifflin and 
Judge Eichard Peters. They had left Philadelphia the previous 
day, and waited here all night for his approach. The military sa- 
luted him on his appearance, and the procession moved on to Ches- 
ter, where they stopped to breakfast. Perceiving that it was im- 
possible to avoid a public reception in the city, the Chief now reluc- 
tantly ordered his carriage into the rear of the line, and mounting 
a superb white horse, in readiness for that purpose, and supported 
on one side by the venerable messenger of Congress, and on the 
other by his old aid-de-camp, Colonel Humphreys, took the position 
assigned him in the cavalcade. They were now joined by an im- 
mense number of citizens, led in the most perfect order by General 
Arthur St. Clair, and by additional companies of cavahy from the 
neighboring counties. At Gray's Ferry were erected on each side 
of the river triumphal arches, covered with laurel branches, and 
approached through long avenues of laurels which had been trans- 
planted from the forests in the preceding night. As he passed 
under the last arch a youth, concealed in the foliage, let down 
with the aid of some ingenious machinery a beautifully ornamented 
civic crown of laurel, and before the hero was. aware, it embraced his 
head, when tumultuous shouts arose from the immense multitude, 
which every moment was increased by crowds from the town and 
all the adjacent country. The procession advanced from the Schuyl- 
kill to Philadelphia surrounded by not less than twenty thousand 
people, lining the avenues and thronging every fence, tree, window, 
or other elevation from which it was possible to obtain a glimpse 
of the great man whom they almost worshipped. Passing through 
the principal streets he was saluted at every step with cries of " Long 
live George Washington ! " " Long live the father of his people ! " 



128 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

"^ until tlie procession arrived at the City Tavern, where a sump- 
tuous banquet was provided, and tlie Executive Council, the Trus- 
tees of the University, the Judges of the Supreme Court, the officers 
of the Cincinnati, and the Mayor and Common Council of the city, 
hastened to wait ujpon him with their respectful congratulations. 
In his reply to the Mayor, he said: "When I contemplate the 
interposition of Providence, as it was visibly manifested in guid- 
ing us through the revolution, in preparing us for the reception of 
the general government, and in concihating the good-will of the 
people of America toward one another after its adoption, I feel my- 
self oppressed and almost overwhelmed with a sense of divine mu- 
nificence. I feel that nothing is due to my personal agency in all 
those wonderful and complicated events, except what can be attri- 
buted to an honest zeal for the good of my country." The festivi- 
ties of the day were continued by a magnificent display of fire- 
works in the evening, and the general joy was manifested in vari- 
ous ways unto, long after midnight. 

In the morning the military paraded at ten o'clock to accom- 
pany the chief to Trenton; but being obliged on account of the 
weather to proceed in his carriage he dechned the intended honor, 
for he could not, he said, think of riding under cover while his 
friends were exposed to the rain on horseback. Ascending the left 
bank of the Delaware, he arrived in the afternoon near the scene 
where he had fought twelve years before, and the reception which 
awaited him, if less imposing than that in some other places, was 
singularly graceful and touching. The clouds had broken away as 
the day wore on, and the sun shone pleasantly down on the smooth 
river, which was lined with a vast crowd assembled to hail his ap- 
proach. As he stepped on to the shore of New Jersey he was greet- 
ed with three loud huzzas, and after salutes by the cavalry and in- 
fantry the procession was formed for marchmg into Trenton. On 



THE TRIUMPHAL PROGRESS. 129 

the bridge across tlie Assnmpinb, whicli flows tlirongli tlie town 
into tlie Delaware — tlie same bridge across wMcli lie bad retreated 
before tbe army of Cornwallis on the eve of the battle of Prince- 
ton — a triumphal arch, twenty feet Mgb, and supported by tMr- 
teen pillars, twined witli evergreens and laurel, bad been erected, 
solely by tbe contributions and under tbe directions of tbe women 
of tbe city. On tbe side toward tbe approaching bero was in- 
scribed : 

THE DEFENDER OF THE MOTHERS WHJ. BE THE PROTECTOR OF THE DAUGHTERS. 

Over tbe centre of tbe arcb was a cupola on wbicb were tbe dates 
of bis glorious actions at Trenton, in letters of gold, wreathed with 
flowers, and from its summit was displayed a large sunflower, to in- 
dicate that it was to him alone these demonstrations were offered, 
that the whole people were as one in their homage to his greatness. 
A numerous train of mothers, leading their daughters, all dressed 
in white, was assembled under and on each side of the arch, and as 
he passed, thirteen young girls, wearing wreaths of flowers on their 
heads, and holding baskets of flowers in their hands, sung the fol- 
lowing little ode, written for the occasion, by Major Howell, who 
had been an officer under him during the war : 

Welcome, mighty chief, once more 
Welcome to this grateful shore ; 
Now no mercenary foe 
Aims again the fatal blow — 
Aims at thee the fatal blow. 

Virgins fair and matrons grave, 
Those thy conquering arm did save, 
Build for thee triumphal bowers ; 
Strew, ye fair, his way with flowers ! 
Strew your hero's way with flowers ! 

and suiting their action to the words, they threw their flowers in 

17 



130 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

the way before him. In the evening lie acknowledged these ele- 
gant compliments in a brief note, in which he said: "General 
Washington cannot leave tliis place without expressing his ac- 
knowledgments to the matrons and young ladies who received him 
in so novel and grateful a manner at the Trium]3hal Arch, for the 
exquisite sensations he experienced in that affecting moment. The 
astonishing contrast between his former and his actual situation at 
the same spot, the elegant taste with which it was adorned for the 
present occasion, and the innocent appearance of the white-robed 
choir who met him with the gratulatory song, have made such an 
impression on his remembrance as, he assures them, will never be 
effaced." 

Having crossed New Jersey, "Washington was received at Eliza- 
bethtown Point, early on the morning of the twenty-thu'd, in ac- 
cordance with a previous arrangement, by a committee of both 
houses of Congress, with whom were the Chancellor of the State, 
the Adjutant General, the Kecorder of the City, and Mr. Jay, Sec- 
retary for Foreign Affaii^s, General Knox, Secretary of War, Sam- 
uel Osgood, Arthur Lee, and Walter Livingston, Commissioners of 
the Treasury, and Ebenezer Hazard, Postmaster General — these 
heads of departments continuing to act until new arrangements 
should be made under the constitutional government. A magni- 
ficent barge had been constructed for the occasion, and was manned 
by thirteen master pilots, in white uniforms, under Commodore 
Mcholson, to convey the President and his suite to New York. 
Tavo other barges had been fitted up for the Board of the Treasury, 
the Secretaries, and other dignitaries. The passage from Eliza- 
bethtown is graphically described in a hitherto unpublished letter 
addressed to his wife the next day by Ehas Boudinot, Chaii-man of 
the Committee of Congress. " You must have observed," he writes, 
■' with what a propitious gale we left the shore, and glided with 



THE TKIUMPHAL PKOaHESS. 131 

steady motion across the Newark Bay, tlie very water seeming to 
rejoice in bearing tlie precious burden over its placid bosom. Tlie 
aj)pearance of tlie troops we liad left behind, and tlieir regular 
firings, added mucli to our pleasure. When we drew near to the 
mouth of the Kills a number of boats, with various flags, came up 
with us and dropped in our wake. Soon after we entered the bay 
General Knox and several other officers, in a large barge, pre- 
sented themselves, with their splendid colors. Boat after boat and 
sloop after sloop, gayiy dressed in all their naval ornaments, added 
to our train, and made a most splendid appearance. Before we got 
to Bedloe's Island a large sloop came, with full sail, on our star- 
board bow, when there stood up about twenty gentlemen and ladies, 
who, with most excellent voices, sung an elegant ode, prepared for 
the purpose, to the tune of ' God save the King,' welcoming their 
great Chief to the seat of government. On its conclusion we 
saluted them, with our hats, and then they, with the surrounding 
boats, gave us three cheers. Soon after another boat came under 
our stern and presented us with a number of copies of a second ode, 
and immediately about a dozen gentlemen began to sing it, in parts, 
as we passed along. Our worthy President was greatly affected 
with these tokens of profound respect. As we approached the 
harbor our train increased, and the huzzaing and shouts of joy 
seemed to add life to this brilliant scene. At this moment a num- 
ber of porpoises came playing amongst us, as if they had risen up 
to know what was the cause of all this happiness. We now dis- 
covered the shores to be crowded with thousands of people — men, 
women, and children — nay, I may -venture to say, tens of thou- 
sands. From the fort to the place of landing, although near half 
a mile, you could see httle else along the shore, in the streets, and 
on board every vessel, but heads standing as thick as ears of corn 
before the harvest. The vessels in the harbor made a most superb 



132 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

apjDearance indeed, dressed in all tlieir pomp of attire. The Span* 
isli ship of war, the Galveston, in a moment,* on a signal given, 
discovered twenty-seven or twenty-eight different colors, of all na- 
tions, on every jDart of the rigging, and paid us the compliment of 
thirteen guas, with her yards all manned, as did also another ves 
sel in the harbor, the North Carolina, displaying colors in the same 
manner. We had a like compliment from the battery, of eighteen 
pounders. We soon arrived at the ferry stairs, where there were 
many thousands of the citizens, waiting with all the eagerness of 
expectation, to welcome our excellent patriot to that shore which 
he regained from a powerful enemy by his valor and good conduct. 
We found the stau'S covered with carpeting and the rails hung with 
crimson. The President, being preceded by the committee, was 
received by the governor and the citizens in the most brilliant man- 
ner. He was met on the wharf by many of his old and faithful 
officers and fellow patriots, who had borne the heat and burthen 
of the day with him, who like him had experienced every reverse 
of fortune vnth fortitude and patience, and who now joined the 
universal chorus of welcoming theii' great dehverer (under Provi- 
dence) from all .their fears. It was with difficulty a passage could 
be made by the troops through the pressing crowds, who seemed 
incapable of being satisfied with gazing at this man of the people. 
You wiR see the particulars of the procession fi'om the wharf to the 
house appointed for his residence, in the newspapers.f The streets 
were lined with the inhabitants as thick as they could stand, and 

* " Every ship in the harbor," says Colonel Stone, " was gayly dressed for the occasion excepk 
the Galveston, a Sj^anish man of-war, which lay at anchor displaying only her own proper colors. 
The contrast which she presented, when compared with the splendid flags and streamers floating 
from every other vessel in the bay, especially the government ship, the North Carolina, was 
universally observed, and the neglect was beginning to occasion unpleasant remarks, when, as 
the barge of the General came abreast, in an instant, as if by magic, the Spaniard exhibited 
every flag and signal known among nations." 

\ On Washington's arrival at the stairs, prepared and ornamented, at Murray's Wharf, for 



THE TKIUMPHAL PROaRESS. 133 

it reqiiii'ed all tlie exertions of a numerous train of city officers, with 
tlieir staves, to make a passage for tlie company. The houses were 
filled with gentlemen and ladies the whole distance, Ibeing about 
half a mile, and the "windows, to the highest stories, were illumi- 
nated by the sparkhng eyes of innumerable companies of ladies, 
who seemed to vie with each other in showing their joy on this 
great occasion. It was half an hour before we could finish our com- 
mission and convey the President to the house prepared for his re- 
sidence. As soon as this was done, notwithstanding his great fa- 
tigue of both body and mind, he had to receive the gentlemen and 
officers, to a very large number, who wished to show their respect 
in the most affectionate manner. When this was finished and the 
people dispersed, we went, undressed, and dined with his Excellen- 
cy Governor Clinton, who had provided an elegant dinner for us. 
Thus ended our commission. The evening, though very wet, was 
spent by all ranks in visiting the city, street after street being illu- 
minated in a superb manner. I cannot help stating now how high- 

his landing, lie was saluted by Colonel Bauman's artillery, and received and congratulated by 
tbe Governor and the officers of the state and the city. From the wharf the procession moved 
In the following order : 

Colonel Morgan Lewis, accompanied by Majors Morton and Van Home; 

Troop of Dragoons, Captain Stakes ; 

German Grenadiers, Captain Scriba; 

Band of Music ; 

Infantry of the Brigade, Captains Swartwout and Stediford; 

Grenadiers, Captain Harsin ; 

Regiment of Artillery, Colonel Bauman ; 

Band of Music ; 

General Malcom, and Aid ; 

Officers of the Militia, two and two ; 

Committee of Congress ; 

The PRESIDENT; Governor Clinton , 

President's Suite ; 

Mayor and Aldermen of New York ; / 

The Reverend Clergy ; / 

Their Excellencies, the French and Spanish Ambassadors, in their carnages ; / 

The whole followed by an immense concourse of citizens. 



134 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

ly we were favored in tlie weatlier ; tlie wliole procession liad been 
completely finished, and we liad repaii^ed to tlie Governor's, before 
it beo-an to rain. When the President was on the wharf an officer 

o 

came np and, addi-essing him, said he had the honor to command 
his Guard, and that it was ready to ooey his orders. The Presi- 
dent answered that, as to the present arrangement, he should pro- 
ceed as was dii-ected, but that after that was over, he hoped he 
would give himself no farther trouble, as the affection of his fellow- 
citizens (turning to the crowd) was all the guard he wanted." 
\ The house to which Washington was conducted, and which be- 
came his official residence, was that which still exists at the corner 
of Cherry street and Franklin square. It was owned by Mr. Os- 
good, of the Treasury Board, and had been occupied by the pre- 
sidents of the Continental Congress. As his domestic establishment 
was not yet organized his table for a few days was supplied from 
Fraunces's tavern, and on the evening of his ai'rival he was enter- 
tained at dinner by Governor Clinton, with the Vice President, 
the heads of departments, the committee of Congress appointed to 
receive him, the foreign ambassadors, and several other eminent 
persons. "The occasion of the President's fii^st arrival^ at the 
seat of government," says Fenno, " arrested the public attention be- 
yond all powers of description ; the hand of industry was suspend- 
ed, and the various pleasures of the capital were centered in a sin- 
gle enjoyment." Some who were advanced in years, and hardly 
expected to see him till they should meet in heaven, could with 
difficulty " restrain their impatience at being in a measure deprived 
of the high gratification, by the eagerness of the multitude of chil- 
dren and young people, who probably might long enjoy the bless- 
ing ; and others were heard to say they should now die contented, 
nothing having been wanted previous to this auspicious time but a 
sight of the Saviour of his Country." 



THE TKIUMPHAL PROaHESS. 135 

John Adams, in a speecli to tlie senate on taking Ins place as 
president of tliat body, two days before Washington's arrival in 
the city, said of liim, " Were I blessed with powers to do justice 
to his character, it would be impossible to increase the confidence 
and res23ect of his country, or make the smallest addition to his 
glory. This can only be effected by a discharge of the present ex- 
alted trust, on the same principles, with the same abilities and 
virtues, which have uniformly appeared in all his former life, 
public and private. May I, nevertheless, be indulged to inquii'e, 
If we look over the catalogues of the first magistrates of nations, 
whether they have been denominated presidents or consuls, kings 
or princes, where shall we find one whose commanding talents and 
virtues, whose overruling good fortune, have so completely united 
all hearts and voices in his favor ; who enjoyed the esteem and ad- 
miration of foreign nations and feUow citizens with equal unanimi- 
ty ? ... . l5y these • great qualities, and their benign effects, has 
Providence marked out. the head of this nation, with a hand so 
distinctly visible; as to have been seen by all men and mistaken 
by none." 

Yet the modest estimate which the Chief entertained respect- 
ing his own abilities brought a melancholy foreboding to mingle 
with the patriotic joy awakened by all these recent triumphs. The 
day after he thus entered New York he wrote in his private jour- 
nal : " The display of boats which attended and joined us on this oc- 
casion, some with vocal and some with instrumental music on board, 
the decorations of the ships, the roar of cannon, and the loud ac- 
clamations of the people which rent the sMes as I passed along 
the wharves, filled my mind with sensations as painful (considering 
the reverse of this scene, which may be the case, after aU my la- 
bors to do good,) as they are pleasing." 

It is noted among the incidents of the day that the schoonei 



136 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

Colranbia, Captain PMlip Freneau, eiglit days from Charleston, 
came up the bay in time to take a part in tlie proceedings. Philip 
Freneau, the bard of the revolution, was destined to act no unim- 
portant part in the secret history of Washington's administration. 



THE INAUGURATION. 
I. 

At lengtlL tlie important day arrived when tlie great leader who 
had maintained our independence in the field with so much wis- 
dom, prudence, energy, and indomitable perseverance, was to be 
inaugurated the first chief magistrate of the united and consolidated 
republic. For nearly a fortnight the taverns and boarding-houses 
in the city had been thronged with visitors, and now every private 
house was fiUed with guests, from all parts of the Union, assembled 
to witness the imposing ceremonial which was to complete the or- 
ganization of the government. " We shall remain here, even if we 
have to sleep in tents, as so many will have to do," wrote Miss Ber- 
tha IngersoU to Miss McKean ; **' " Mr. Williamson had promised 
to engage us rooms at Frauncis's, but that was jammed long ago, 
as was every other decent public house ; and now, while we are 
waiting at Mrs. Yandervoort's, in, Maiden Lane, till after dinner,/ 
two of our beaus are running about town, determined to obtain the 
best places for us to stay at which can be opened for love, money, 
or the most persuasive speeches." Another young woman, after 
recounting the vicissitudes of a journey from Boston, and various 
difficulties in finding agreeable accommodations in the metropohs, 

* Afterward Marchioness d'Yrujo. 

18 



138 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

adds in a postcript, " I liave seen him ! and tliongli I liad been en 
tirely ignorant that lie was arrived in the city, I should have known 
at a glance that it was General Washington : I never saw a human 
being that looked so great and noble as he does. I could fall down 
on my knees before him and bless him for all the good he has done 
for this country." 

II. 

The anxiously expected morning of Thursday, the thirtieth 
of April, was greeted with a national salute from the Bowling 
Green, and at an early hour the streets were filled with men and 
women, in their holiday attire, while every moment arrived new 
crowds from the adjoining country, by the road from King's Bridge, 
by ferry boats from more distant places, or by packets which 
had been all night on the Sound or coming down the Hudson. At 
eight o'clock some clouds about the horizon caused apprehensions 
of an un|)leasant day; but when, at nine, the bells rung out a 
merry peal, and presently with a slower and more solemn striking, 
called from every steeple for the people to assemble in the churches 
" to implore the blessing of Heaven on the nation, its favor and pro- 
tection to the President, and success and acceptance to his adminis- 
tration," the sun shone clearly down, as if commissioned to give as- 
surance of the approbation of the Divine Ruler of the world. 

As the people came out from the churches, where Livingston, 
Mason, Provoost, Rodgers, and other clergymen,* had given passion- 

* The list of clergymen, for the city, in 1789, comprised only fourteen names, as follows : — 
Presbyterian Church, Rev. Dr. John Rodgers ; Scotch Presbyterian Church, Rev. Dr. John Mason ; 
Episcopal Church, Rev. Dr. Samuel Provoost, Bishop, and Rev. Mr. Beach and Rev. Benjamin 
Moore ; United Lutheran Church, Rev. Dr. John Christopher Kunzie ; Methodist Church, Rev. 
Mr. Morrill and Rev. Mr. Cloud ; Reformed Dutch Church, Rev. Dr. John H. Livingston and Rev. 
Dr. William Linn ; German Church, Rev. Mr. Gross ; Baptist Church, Rev. Mr. Foster ; Jewish 
Synagogue, Rev. Gershom Seixas. While the ministry of peace exhibited this meagre catalogue, 
that of contention — the list of Supreme Court attorneys — embraced one hundred and twenty- 
two. 




M' 



■.A]T/.JPJm USAJl 



THE INAUGURATION. 139 

ately earnest and eloquent expression to that reverent and pro- 
found desire wHcIl filled all hearts — so universal was a religious 
sense of the importance of the occasion — the military began to 
march from their respective quarters, with flaunting banners, and 
the liveliest music. The principal companies were Captain Stakes's 
troop of horse, equipped in the style of Lee's famous partisan le- 
gion ; Captain Scriba's German Grenadiers, with blue coats, yellow 
waistcoats and breeches, black gaiters, and towering cone-shaped 
caps, faced with bear-skin ; Captain Harsin's New York Grenadiers, 
composed, in imitation of the guard of the great Frederick, of only 
the tallest and finest-looking young men of the city, dressed in blue 
coats with red facings and gold lace broideries, cocked hats with 
white feathers, and white waistcoats and breeches, and black spat- 
terdashes, buttoned close from the shoe to the knee ; and the Scotch 
Infantry, in full highland costume, with bagpipes. 

Ealph Izard, Tristram Dalton, and Richard Henry Lee, on the 
part of the Senate, and Charles CarroE, Egbert Benson, and Fisher 
Ames, on the part of the House of Representatives, had been ap- 
pointed a joint committee of arrangements, and the procession 
was formed under the immediate dii'ection of Colonel Morgan 
Lewis, in Cherry street, opposite the President's house, at twelve 
o'clock. After the military came 

The Sheriff of the City and County of New York, 
The Committee of the Senate, 

G-EORGE WaSHIKGTON, 

The Committee of the House of Representatives, 

John Jay, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 

Henry Knox, Secretary of War, 

Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of the State of New York, 

Distinguished Citizens. 

The procession having marched through Queen, Great Dock, and 
Broad streets, until opposite Federal Hall, the troops formed a line . 



140 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

on eacli side of tlie way, tlirougli wliicli the President, with his at- 
tendants, was conducted to the chamber of the Senate, where 
the members of the House of Representatives had a few minutes 
before assembled, and at the door the Vice President received him 
and waited upon him to the chair. 

The Vice President then said, " Sir, the Senate and House of 
Representatives of the United States are ready to attend you to 
take the oath required by the Constitution, which will be adminis 
tered by the Chancellor of the State of New York." 

The President answered, " I am ready to proceed." 

The Vice President and the Senators led the way, and, accom- 
panied by the Chancellor, and followed by the Representatives, and 
other public characters present, he then walked to the outside gallery, 
from which Broad street and Wall street, each way, were perceived 
to be filled, as mth a sea of upturned faces, but as silent as if the 
immense concom'se had been of statues instead of living men. 

The spectacle must have been in the highest degree interesting 
A and serious. In the centre, between two pillars, was seen the com- 
manding figure of Washington, in a coat, waistcoat, and breeches, 
of fine dark brown cloth, and white silk stockings, all of American 
manufacture, plain silver buckles in his shoes, his head uncovered, 
and his haii* dressed in the prevailing fashion of the time. On one 
side stood the Chancellor, in a full suit of black cloth, and on the 
other the Vice President, dressed more showily, but like the Pre- 
sident entu-ely in American fabrics. Between /the President and 
the Chancellor was Mr. Otis, Secretary of the Senate, a small short 
man, holding an open Bible upon a rich crimson cushion, and con- 
spicuous in the group were Roger Sherman, General Knox, General 
St. Clair, Baron Steuben, and others whose names were equally 
dear and familiar to the people. 

A gesture. of the Chancellor arrested the attention of the im- 



THE INAUGURATION. 141 

mense assembly, and lie pronounced slowly and distinctly tlie words 
of the oatli. The Bible was raised, and as the President bowed to 
Mss its sacred pages, he said audibly, " I swear," and added, with 
fervor, his eyes closed, that his whole soul might be absorbed in 
the supplication, " So help me God ! " 

Then the Chancellor said, " It is done," and, turning to the mul- 
titude, waved his hand, and with a loud voice exclaimed, " Long 
live George Washington, President of the United States ! " 

Immediately the air was filled with acclamations and the roar 
of cannon ; the President bowed, and again and again the welkin 
rung with the plaudits of happy and grateful citizens, who felt that 
Heaven had granted all their reasonable petitions, and that the 
New Era dreamed of by sages and celebrated by orators and bards 
was now completely inaugurated. 

" The scene," wiites one who was present to his correspondent 
in Philadelphia, "was solemn and awful beyond description. It 
would seem extraordinary that the administration of an oath, a 
ceremony so very common and familiar, should in so great a de- 
gree excite the public curiosity ; but the circumstances of the Pre- 
sident's election, the impression of his past services, the concourse 
of spectators, the devout fervency with which he repeated the oath, 
and the reverential manner in which he bowed down and kissed the 
sacred volume, all these consjoired to render it one of the most au- 
gust and interesting spectacles ever exhibited It seemed, from 

the number of witnesses, to be a solemn appeal to Heaven and earth 
at once. In regard to this great and good man I may perhaps be 
an enthusiast, but I confess that I was under an awful and rehgious 
persuasion, that the gracious Euler of the Universe was looking 
down at that moment with peculiar complacency on an act which 
to a part of his creatures was so very important." Under this im- 
pression, he proceeds to say that when the Chancellor proclaimed 



142 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Washington President, liis sensibility was so excited tliat lie could 
do no more than wave his hat with the rest, without the power of 
joining in the repeated acclamations which rent the aii\ 

Few persons are now living who witnessed the induction of the 
first President of the United States into his office ; but walking, not 
many months ago, near the middle of a night of unusual beauty, 
through Broadway — at that hour scarcely disturbed by any voices 
or footfalls excej)t our own — Washington Irving related to Dr. 
Francis and myself his recollections of these scenes, with that 
graceful conversational eloquence of which he is one of the greatest 
of living masters. He had watched the procession till the Presi- 
dent entered Federal Hall, and from the corner of New street and 
Wall street had observed the subsequent proceedings in the balcony. 

III. 

The President, members of the Congress, and other dignitaries 
and distinguished characters, having returned to the Senate cham- 
ber and taken thek seats, Washington arose and delivered a short 
inaugural speech, alike remarkable as a display of modesty, dig- 
nity, and wisdom. Among the vicissitudes of his life, he said, none 
could have fiUed him with greater anxieties than his election to the 
Presidency. " On the one hand I was summoned by my country, 
whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a 
retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in 
my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of 
my dechning years ; a retreat which was rendered every day more 
necessary as well as more dear to me by the addition of habit to 
inclination, and of frequent interruptions of my health to the grad- 
ual waste committed on it by time. On-the other hand, the mag- 
nitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my country 
called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most expe- 



THE INAUGURATION. 143 

I'ienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications^ 
could not but overwhelm with despondence one who, inheriting 
inferior endowments from nature, and unpractised in the duties of 
civil admhiistration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own 
deficiences. In this conflict of emotions all I dare aver is, that it 
has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just apprecia- 
tion of every circumstance by which it might be affected; all I 
dare hope is, that if in accepting this task I have been too much 
swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an 
affectionate sensibility to this transcendant proof of the confidence 
of my fellow-citizens, and have thence too little consulted my inca- 
pacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares 
before me, my error will be palliated by the motives which misled 
me, and its consequences judged by my country with some share 
of the partiality in which they originated. Such being the impres- 
sions under which I have in obedience to the public summons re- 
paired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to 
omit in this, my first official act, my fervent supplications to that 
Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the 
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can su]3ply every 
human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties 
and happiness of the people of the United States a government 
instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may ena- 
ble every instrument employed in its admiaistration to execute 
with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering 
this homage to the great Author of every public and private good, 
I assure myself that it expresses yom* sentiments not less than my 
own, nor those of our fellow-citizens at large less than either. No 
people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible Hand 
which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the 
United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the 



144 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguislied 
by some token of providential agency, and in tlie important revo- 
lution just accomplished in the system of this united government, 
the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct 
communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be com- 
pared with the means by which most governments have been estab- 
lished, without some retm-n of pious gratitude, along with an hum- 
ble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to pre- 
sage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced 
themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will 
join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the 
influence of which the proceedings of a new and free government, 
can more auspiciously commence." These are sentiments most 
worthy of the greatest of men, and theu' perfect and profound 
justice can never be questioned, except by the intellectually weak 
or the morally depraved. Intimating briefly his unwillingness, 
until he should become more familiar with the condition of public 
affairs, to recommend any specific action to the representatives of 
the people, and suggesting that he desired, as when holding his 
former office of commander-in-chief of the army, no compensation 
for his services, but only the repayment of his actual expenses, he 
closed with renewed expressions of his devout gratitude to Heaven, 
and supplications for fm*ther aid, protection, and direction.* 

The President, Vice President, Senators, Kepresentatives, Heads 
of Departments, and many others, then proceeded to St. Paul's 
Ohapel in Broadway, where prayers suited to the occasion were 
read by Dr. Provoost, recently elected Bishop of the Protestant 

* ITie Senate, a few days afterwards, and soon after the House of Representatives, went in 
long lines of carriages from Federal Hall to the President's house, to present their answers to the 
inauguration speech. The members of the lower House, as we learn from a MS. letter of EUas 
Boudinot, had a very unpleasant time of it, in consequence of the rain, but they were delighted 
with their gracious reception. 



THE INAUaURATION. 145 

Episcopal Churcli in New York, wlio liad been selected by the 
Senate to be one of tlie chaplains of Congress. These services over, 
the President was escorted back to his own 'house. 

IV. 

In- the evening the city was brilliantly illuminated, and there 
was a display of fireworks, under Colonel Bauman, surpassing 
any thing of the kind hitherto seen in New York. Between the 
Bowling Green and the Fort, at the foot of Broadway, was a large 
transparent painting, in the centre of which appeared a portrait of 
Washington, under a figure of Fortitude, and the Senate and House 
of Representatives were exhibited, one on the right, and the other 
on the left, under the forms of Justice and Wisdom. The ship 
Carolina, off the Fort, seemed like a pyramid of stars. Federal 
HaU presented in every window a sheet of light. The front of the 
Theatre, in John street, was almost covered with transparencies, one 
of which represented Fame, descending like an angel from Heaven, 
and crowning Washington with the emblems of immortality. A 
very large number of private residences were also illuminated, and 
none more tastefully or brilliantly than those of the French and 
Spanish ministers, the Count de Moustier and Don Diego Gardoqui, 
which were both in Broadway, near the Bowling Green. The 
doors and windows of M. de Moustier displayed borderings of 
lamps, which shone upon numerous paintings, ingeniously sugges- 
tive of the past, the present, and the future, in American history ; 
and there were also over the front of the house large and striking 
transparencies, which are described as having done great honor to 
the taste and sentiment of the inventor, probably Madame de Bre- 
han, the Count's sister, who was always industrious with her pencil 
when not occupied with more immediate duties to society. The 

Spanish minister's residence was stUL more elaborately and effect- 
19 



146 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

ively ornamented. In tlie principal transparency were seen figures 
of the Graces, exceedingly well executed, among a pleasing variety 
of patriotic emblems, and trees, flowers, arclies, and fountains ; and 
in the windows were moving pictures, so sldlful in design and 
accomplishment as to present the illusion of living panoramas, " the 
whole," according to Fenno's Gazette, " affording a new, an ani- 
mated, &nd an enchanting spectacle." 

Mr. Lear mentions, in a diary which he kept at the time, that 
in the beginning of the evening the President, Colonel Humphreys, 
and himself, went in a carriage to the houses of Chancellor Living- 
ston and General Knox, where they had a full view of the fire- 
works, and that they returned home at ten o'clock, on foot, the 
throng of people in the streets being so great as not to permit a 
carriage to pass. 

V. 

UisTDER these favorable auspices, surrounded and sustained by 
the most able and eminent men of the country, and encouraged by 
the most enthusiastic demonstrations of popular respect and affec- 
tion, Washington entered upon that career of civil administration 
in which the sagacious student of history recognizes as much 
bravery of temper, solidity of understanding, and steady and 
unselfish devotion to the common welfare, as had marked that 
miHtary conduct which caused Frederic, the hero of Prague, Kos- 
bach, and Lissa, to send him his sword, inscribed, "From the 
oldest general in Europe to the greatest general in the world," and 
Napoleon to hail him as " the Great Washington." 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 
I. 

Foe several days after tlie inauguration Washington was occu- 
pied nearly every moment with public business, and the amount of 
official labor which he performed seems almost incredible. His first 
purpose was to acquaint himself intimately with the details of do- 
mestic and foreign affaii'S, and with this view he instructed Mr. Jay, 
General Knox, and the commissioners of the Treasury, (who con- 
tinued to exercise their functions till Congress passed laws for the 
reorganization and support of their respective departments,) to pre- 
sent elaborate reports, which he read, and with his own hand re- 
produced, in abstracts, the better to impress their contents on his 
memory ; and that he might more perfectly understand our rela- 
tions with other governments he studied, from beginning to end, 
with pen in hand, all the correspondence which had accumulated 
in the foreign secretary's office since the treaty of peace and the 
termination of the war. 

In the midst of these arduous avocations he found time, never- 
theless, to arrange with Samuel Fraunces,* his steward, the details 
of his household economy, and to attend to the more important 

* " Black Sam," as Fraunces was familiarly called, must have been at this time not fax* from 
sixty years of age. Washington had long been familiar-with him as a popular host, and had em- 
ployed his daughter as housekeeper, at Richmond Hill, ■while the head-quarters of the army were 



148 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

calls of ceremony, courtesy and curiosity, though in regard to these 
he was relieved in a considerable degree by the serviceable inter- 
ference of Colonel Humphrey, who instinctively understood what 
parties were best entitled to an audience, and in what manner to 
send away without offence those whom it was least necessary for 
the President personally to receive. 

in the city. It was by means of this daughter that an attempt to poison the Chief, during that 
period, was frustrated. As early as 1761, Fraunces kept a tavern, and sold "portable soup, 
catehu]^, bottled gooseberries, pickled walnuts, pickled or fryed oysters fit to go to the West 
Indies, pickled mushrooms, currant jelly, marmalade," &c., at the "sign of the Mason's Arms, 
near the Green." He afterward opened the Vauxhall Gardens, in Greenwich street, and in 1771 
his celebrated City Tavern, in Broad street, where Washington took leave of the ofiicers of the 
army, on the fourth of December, 1783. There were several clubs in Kew York previous to the 
war; one, called "The Moot," and composed principally of lawyers, was organized in 1770, and 
held its last meeting on the sixth of January, 1775. To this belonged William Livingston, Rob- 
ert R. Livingston, John Jay, Stephen De Lancey, Gouverneur Morris, James Duane, and about a 
dozen others, a majority of whom subsequently filled important public places. Another was the 
Social Club, which " passed Saturday evenings at Sam, Fraunces's, corner of Broad and Dock streets, 
in winter, and in summer at Kip's Bay, where they built a neat large room for a club house." This 
club was broken up in December, 1775. The following biographical list of its membei-s, written 
by the John Moore whose name is at the end of it, is preserved in the library of the New York 
Historical Society : 

"John Jay, — Disaffected — Became Member of Congress, a Resident Minister to Spain, Commissioner to make 
Peace, Chief Justice, Minister to England, and on his return Governor of New York — 
a good and amiable man. 
" Gouverneur Morris, " Member of Congress, Minister to France, &c. 
"Kobt R. Livingston, " Minister to France, Chancellor of New York, &c. 
" Egbert Benson, " District Judge, New York, and in the Legislature. A good man. 

"Morgan Lewis, " Governor of New York, and a General in the war of 1312. 

" Gulian Verplanck, " but in Europe until 1TS3. I'resident of the New, York Bank. 
"John Livingston and 

his brother Henry, " but of no political importance. 
" James Seagrove, " went to the southward as a merchant. 

"Francis Lewis, " but of no political importance. 

" John Watts, — Doubtful — during the war Recorder of New York. 
"Leonard Lispenard and 

his brother Anthony, " but remained quiet at New York. 
" Rich'd Harrison, — Loyal — ^but has since been Recorder of Now York. 
" John Ilay, " an officer in the British army. Killed in the West Indies. 

" Peter Van Schaack, " a lawyer, remained quiet at Kinderhook. 
"Daniel Ludlow, " during the war. Since President of the Manhattan Bank. 

"Dr. Samuel Bard, " though in 1775 doubtful, remained in Nevv York. A good man. 

"George Ludlow, " remained on Long Island in quiet. A good man. 

"William, his brother, " or supposed so — remained on Long Island. Inoffensive man. 
" WiUiam Imlay, " at first — but doubtful after 1777. 

" Edward Gould, " at New York all the war — a merchant. 

"John Reade— Pro. and Con.— Would have proved loyal, no doubt, had not his wife's family been otherwisa 
"J.Stevens, — Disaffected. 

"Henry Kelly, — Loyal — went to England, and did not return. 
"Stephen Rapelye — turned out bad. Died in the New York Hospital. 
"John Moore, — Loyal — in public life during all the war, and from the year 1765." 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 149 

It soon became apparent, however, that particular rules must 
be established for receiving visitors and entertaining company. The 
first step taken was a pubHc intimation, two or three days after the 
inaugm^ation, that he would receive visits on Tuesdays and Fri- 
days, between the hours of two and three in the afternoon, and that 
visits of compliment on other days, and particularly on Sundays, 
would not be agreeable to him. He at the same time consulted 
several of his more immediate friends on the subject, intimating 

Washington's confidence in Fraunces's judgment had been illustrated in 1Y85, when he wrote 
to him from Mount Vernon : 

"As no person can judge better of the qualifications necessary to constitute a good housekeeper, or household 
steward, than yourself, for a family which has a good deal of company, and wishes to entertain them In a plain but gen- 
teel stj'le, I take the liberty of asking you if there is any such one In your reach, whom you think could be induced 
to come to me on reasonable wages. I would rather have a man than a woman; but either will do, if they can bo 
recommended for honesty, sobriety, and knowledge in their profession; which, in one word, is to relieve Mrs. Wash- 
ington from the drudgery of ordering, and seeing the table properly covered, and things economically used 

The wages I now give to a man, who is about to leave me in order to get married, (under which circumstances ho 
would not suit me,) is about one hundred dollars per annum ; but for one who understands the business perfectly, and 
stands fair in all other respects, I would go as far as one hundred and fifty dollars." 

The first public appearance of Fraunces in his new capacity was in the following adTcrtisement, 
published in the newspapers : 

" Whkreab, all servants and others appointed to procure provisions or supplies for the household of the President 
of the Ukited States will be furnished with monies for these purposes : Notice is therefore given. That no accounts, 
for the payment of which the public might be considered as responsible, are to be opened with any of them. 

"May 4th, 17S9. Samuel Fraunces, Steward of the Eou&ehold^ 

" We are happy to inform our readers, in addition to the preceding notification," says Fenno's 
Gazette, " that the President is determined to purstie that system of regularity and economy in 
his household which has always marked his public and private life. As a proof of this, we learft 
that the steward is obliged, by his articles of agreement, to exhibit weekly a fair statement of 
the receipts and expenditures of moneys by him, for and on account of the President's house- 
hold, to such person as the President may appoint to inspect the same; together with the several 
bills and receipts of payment for those articles which may be purchased by him, where such 
bills and receipts can be obtained. And it is likewise strongly inculcated on the steward to 
guard against any waste or extravagance that might be committed by the servants of the family." 

An anecdote illustrative of the President's personal economy refers to the following winter. 
Fraunces, it is related, was always anxious to provide the first dainties of the season for his 
table. On one occasion, making his purchases at the old Vly Market, he observed a fine shad, 
the first of the season. He was not long in making a bargain, and the fish was sent home 
with his other provisions. The next morning it was duly served, in the best style, for break- 
fast, on sitting down to which Washington observed the fragrant delicacy, and asked what it 
was ; the steward replied, that it was " a fine shad." " It is very early in the season for shad : 
howmvch did you pay for it?" "Two dollars." "Two dollars! I can never encourage this 
extravagance at my table, take it away — I will not touch it." The shad was accordingly 
removed, and Fraunces, who had no such economical scruples, made a hearty meal upon it in 
his own room. 



150 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

that it was liis wish to adopt sucli a system, as, without ovei'step 
ping the limits of republican simplicity, would best maintain the 
dignity of the office, and secure to the President such a command 
of his time as was necessary to the proper performance of his du- 
ties. About a week after the inauguration, at his request, Mr. 
Hamilton addressed to him a letter, embracing such suggestions as 
he deemed approj)riate, and these were in the main adopted. The 
customs thus introduced have ever since governed the intercourse 
of the executive with society. It was decided that the President 
should return no visits, that invitations to dinner should be given only 
to official characters and strangers of distinction, and that visits of 
courtesy should be confined to the afternoon of Tuesday, in each week. 
Foreign ministers and strangers were, however, received on othe 
days, and the President was always accessible to persons who wished 
to see him on business. At a subsequent period his house was open 
in the same manner on Fridays for visits to Mrs. Washington, 
which were on a still more sociable footing, and at which the 
Chief was always present. 

Mr. Jefferson, in his "Anas," has this statement : " When the 
President went to New York, he resisted for three weeks the efforts to 
introduce levees. At length he yielded, and left it to Humphreys 
and some others to settle the forms. Accordingly an ante-chamber 
and presence-room were provided, and when those who were to pay 
theii' court were assembled the President set out, preceded by Hum- 
phreys. After passing through the ante-chamber, the door of the 
inner room was thrown open, and Humphreys entered first, calling 
out with a loud voice, ' The President of the United States ! ' The 
President was so much disconcerted by it that he did not recover 
in the whole time of the levee ; and when the company was gone, 
he said to Humphreys, ' Well, you have taken me in once, but, by 
God, you shall never take me in a second time.'" 




NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 151 

How entirely erroneous tliis is, in every particular, may be 
seen from Washington's own statement respecting tlie institution 
of tlie levees, as given in a letter to his relation, Dr. Stuart. " Be- 
fore tlie custom was established," he says, " which now accommo- 
dates foreign characters, strangers, and others, who from motives 
of curiosity, respect to the chief magistrate, or any other cause, are 
induced to call upon me, I was unable to attend to any business what- 
ever ; for gentlemen, consulting their own convenience rather than 
mine, were calling after the time I rose from breakfast, and often 
before, until I sat down to dinner. This, as I resolved not to neg- 
lect my public duties, reduced me to the choice of one of these 
alternatives : either to refuse visits altogether, or to appropriate a 
time for the reception of them. The first would, I knew, be dis- 
gusting to many ; the latter, I expected, would undergo animadver- 
sion from those who would find fault, witk or without cause. I 
therefore adopted that line of conduct which combined public ad 
vantage with private convenience, and which in my judgment was 
unexceptionable in itself. These visits are optional ; they are made 
without invitation ; between the hours of three and four, every 
Tuesday, I am prepared to receive them. Gentlemen, often in 
great numbers, come and go ; chat with each other, and act as they 
please. A porter shows them into the room, and they retire from 
it when they choose, without ceremony. At their first entrance 
they salute me, and I them, and as many as I can, I talk to. What 
' pomp ' there is in all this I am unable to discover." 

On Sundays the President attended church, in the morning, 
unless detained by indisposition, passed the afternoon in his own 
apartment, at home, and in the evening remained with his family, 
without company, though sometimes an old or intimate friend was 
admitted for an hour or two. Every night it was his custom to 
retire to his library at nine or ten o'clock, and to remain there an 



152 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

liour before lie went to his cliamber ; and he always rose "before the 
sun, and occupied himself in his library until called to breakfast. 

II. 

Anothee subject which caused much discussion in society as 
well as in Congress was that of titles. We have already seen from 
a letter by General Armstrong to General Gates, that " even Roger 
Sherman had set his head at work to devise some style of addi-ess 
to the President more novel and dignified than ' Excellency,' " before 
Washington arrived in the city. The first movement in Congress 
in relation to this matter was on the twenty-third of April, when 
committees were appointed in both houses to consider and report 
what styles or titles it would be proper to annex to the offices of 
President and Vice President of the United States, if any, other than 
those given in the Constitution. On the fifth of May the Repre- 
sentatives decided against all titles whatever. In the Senate, on 
the seventh, the committee proposed that the President should be 
addressed as "His Excellency," but this proposition was rejected, 
and a new committee appointed, who, on the fourteenth, recom- 
mended the style of " His Highness the President of the United 
States of America, and Protector of theii* Liberties." The Repre- 
sentatives, however, stiU refusing to sanction any title except that 
indicated in the Constitution, the Senate finally passed a resolution 
declaring that, "from" a decent respect for the opinion and practice 
of civilized nations, whether under monarchical or repubhcan forms 
of government, whose custom is to annex titles of respectability to 
the offices of their chief magistrates, and that in intercourse with 
foreign nations a due respect for the majesty of the people of the 
United States might not be hazarded by an appearance of singular- 
ity," it had been of opinion that it was expedient to make use of 
some such distinction in addressing the head of the government ; 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 153 

but that, desii'ous of preserving harmony witli tlie House of Repre- 
sentatives, it would conform to its practice, and adopt tlie simple 
style, " To the President of the United States." 

Before the meeting of Congress this subject had been discussed 
by some distinguished characters at a dinner table in Philadelphia. 
The wife of Dr. Shippen was from Virginia, and in consequence of 
this, probably, the doctor invited several members of the delega- 
tion of that state, while in Philadelj)hia, on their way to New York, 
to dine at his house ; and Mr. Madison, Mr. Page, Mr. Eichard Henry 
Lee, and one or two others accepted, and met, from the city, Chief 
Justice McKean, Mr. William Bingham, and Dr. Ashbel Green. 
Soon after the company were assembled, the Chief Justice asked 
Mr. Madison if he had thought of a title for the President. Mad- 
ison answered that he had not, and added, that in his opinion no 
title except that of President would be necessary or proper. " Yes, 
sir," replied McKean, " he must have a title, and I have been examin- 
ing the titles of the princes of Europe to discover one that has not 
been appropriated; 'Most Serene Highness' is used, but Serene 
Highness, without the word ' Most,' is not ; and I think it proper 
that our Chief magistrate should be known as His Serene High- 
ness the President of the United States." An amicable controversy 
ensued, Madison and his colleagues on one side, and McKean and 
probably Bingham on the other. 

General Muhlenberg states that Washington himself was in 

favor of the style of " High Mightiness," used by the Stadtholder 

of Holland, and that while the subject was under discussion ip 

Congress he diaed with the President, and, by a jest about it, for a 

time lost his friendship. Among the guests was Mr. Wynkoop, of 

Pennsylvania, who was noticeable for his large and commanding 

figui-e. The resolutions before the two houses being referred to, 

the President, in his usual dignified manner, said, " Well, General 
20 



154 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

Mnlilenberg, wliat do you tliink of tlie title of High Miglitiness ? '' 
Mulileuberg answered, laughing, "Why, General, if we were 
certain that the office would always be held by men as large as 
yourself or my friend Wynkoop, it would be appropriate enough, 
but if by chance a j)resident as small as my opposite neighbor 
should be elected, it would become ridiculous." This evasive reply 
excited some merriment about the table, but the Chief looked 
grave, and his e%ident displeasure was increased soon after by 
JNIuhlenberg's vote, in the House of Representatives, against con- 
ferring any title whatever upon the President. 

Mr. Adams was understood to be decidedly in favor of titles, 
and he had adopted in his equipage and manner of living a style 
which seemed to him appropriate to the dignity of his official posi- 
tion. At this many members of Congress, especially some from the 
South, took offence, and Mr. Thomas Tudor Tucker, of South Caro- 
lina, referred to him in a very marked manner in a speech on the sub- 
ject of titles, saying, "This spiiit of imitation, this apishness, will be 
the ruin of our country, and instead of giving us dignity in the 
eyes of foreigners will only expose us to be laughed at " 

III. 

So:me preparations had been made by the managers of the City 
Assembhes for an Inauguration Ball, but as JVIi's. Washington did 
not accompany the President to New York the design was aban- 
doned. A week after, however — on the evening of Thm-sday, the 
seventh of May — a very splendid ball was given at the Assem- 
bly Eooms, at which the President, the Vice President, a major- 
ity of the members of both houses of Congress, the French Minis- 
ter, the Spanish Minister, the Governor of New York, Chancellor 
Livingston, Baron Steuben, General Knox, Mr. Jay, Mr. Ham- 
ilton, and a great number of other distinguished persons, were 



^ 




Illllli,lllll.lil,lllll 




Mir.ffi^ ]iW.F.)'^CMU\M. 



^: . 



V NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 1^ 

present. " Tlie collection of ladies," says a contemporary, " was 
numerous and brilliant, and they were dressed with consummate 
taste and elegance." * The Assembly Koom was on the east side 
of Broadway, a little above Wall street, and it was decorated on 
this occasion with tasteful and appropriate magnificence. 

Among the most distinguished women at this ball were Lady 
Stirling, and her two daughters. Lady Mary Watts and Lady 

* The costume of the time is very well illustrated by the portraits iu this volume, but some 
readers may be interested in the remarks on the dresses of •women -which form a portion of 
Colonel Stone's description of the ball above referred to. " Few jewels," he says, " were then 
worn in the United States ; but in other respects, the dresses were rich and beautiful, according 
to the fashions of the day. We are not quite sure that we can describe the full di-ess of a lady 
of rank at the period under consideration, so as to render it intelligible. But we will make the 
attempt. One favorite dress was a plain celestial blue satin gown, with a white satin petticoat. 
On the neck was worn a very large Italian gauze handkerchief, with border stripes of satin. The 
head-dress was apoufoi gauze, in the form of a globe, the creneaux or head-piece of which was 
composed of white satin, having a double wing, in large plaits, and trimmed with a wreath of 
artificial roses, falling from the left at the top to the right at the bottom, in front, and the reverse 
behind. The hair was dressed all over in detached cui-ls, four of which, in two ranks, fell on 
each side of the neck, and were relieved behind by a floating chignon. Another beautiful dress 
was a perriot, made of gray Indian taffeta, with dark stripes of the same color, — having two 
collars, the one yeUow, and the other white, both trimmed with a blue silk fringe, and a reverse 
trimmed in the same manner. Under the perriot they wore a yellow corset or boddice, with 
large cross stripes of blue. Some of the ladies with this dress wore hats a VEspagnole, of white 
satin, with a band of the same material placed on the crown, like the wreath of flowers on the 
head-dress above mentioned. This hat, which, with a plume, was a very popular article of dress, 
was relieved on the left side, having two handsome cockades, — one of which was at the top, and 
the other at the bottom. On the neck was worn a very large plain gauze handkerchief, the ends 
of which were hid under the boddice, after the manner represented in Trumbull's and Stuai't's 
portraits of Lady Washington. Eound the bosom of the perriot a frill of gauze, a la Henri IV., 
was attached, cut in points around the edge. There was still another dress which was thought 
to be very simple and pretty. It consisted of a perriot and petticoat, both composed of the same 
description of gray striped silk, and trimmed round with gauze, cut in points at the edges in the 
manner of herrisons. The herrisous were indeed nearly the sole trimmings used for the perriots, 
caracos, and petticoats of fashionable ladies; made either of ribbons or Italian gauze. With this 
dress they wore large gauze handkerchiefs upon their necks, with four satin stripes around the 
border, two of which were narrow, and the others broad. The head-dress was a plain gauze 
cap, after the form of the elders and ancients of a nunnery. The shoes were celestial blue, with 
rose-colored rosettes. Such are descri2:)tions of some of the principal costumes ; and although 
varied in divers unimportant particulars, by the several ladies, according to their respective tastes 
and fancies, yet, as with the peculiar fashions of all other times, there was a general correspond- 
ence of the outlines, — the toiif ensemble was the same." 



.56 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT. 

Kitty Duer ; Mrs. Peter Van Brugli Livingston, wlio was a sister 
of the late Lord Stirling, Mrs. Montgomery, widow of the liero of 
Quebec, Lady Christiana Griffin, Lady Temple, the Marchioness de 
Brehan, Madame de la Forest, Mrs. Clinton, Mrs. Jay, Mrs. Hamil- 
ton, Mrs. Provoost, wife of Bishop Provoost, ]\ii's. Duane, wife of 
the Mayor, Mrs. Dalton, wife of a senator from Massachusetts. Mrs. 
Langdon, wife of a senator from New Hampshii-e, Mrs. Domiuick 
Lynch, Mrs. Elbridge Gerry, Mrs. William S. Smith, Mrs. James 
H. Maxwell, Mi^s. Beekman, Mrs. Robinson, the Misses Living- 
ston, the Misses Bayard, and Miss Van Zandt. The President 
danced during the evening in the cotillion with Mrs. Peter Van 
Brugh Livingston and IVIrs. Maxwell, and with the latter in a 
minuet. He had repeatedly danced with Mrs. Maxwell, then 
Miss Van Zandt, while the headquarters of the army were at 
Morristown. 

On this occasion an agreeable surprise was prepared by the 
managers for every woman who attended. A sufficient number 
of fans had been made for the purpose in Paris, the ivory frames of 
which displayed, as they were opened, between the hinges and the 
elegant paper covering, an extremely well executed medallion por- 
trait of Washington, in profile, and a page was appointed to jDre- 
sent one, with the compliments of the managers, as each couple 
passed the receiver of the tickets. 

]\Ii', Jefferson, to illustrate "the frenzy which prevailed in 
New York on the opening of the new government," gives an ac- 
count of this ball, on the authority of a " JVIr. Brown." He says : 
" At the first pubhc ball which took place after the President's 
arrival there, Colonel Hmnphreys, Colonel William S. Smith, and 
Mrs. Knox, were to arrange the ceremonials. These arrangements 
were as follows : a sofa at the head of the room, raised on several 
steps, whereon the President and Mrs. Washington were to be 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 157 

seated ; the gentlemen were to dance witli swords ; eacli one, wlien 
going to dance, was to lead Ms partner to the foot of the sofa, make 
a low obeisance to the President and his lady, then go and dance, 
and, when done, bring his partner back again to the foot of the 
sofa, for new obeisances, and finally retu-e to their chaii's. It was 
to be understood, too, that gentlemen should be dressed in bags. 
Mi^s. Knox contrived to come with the President, and to follow him 
and Mrs. Washington to their destination, and she had the design 
of forcing from the President an invitation to a seat on the sofa. 
She mounted up the steps after them, unbidden, but unfortunately 
the wicked sofa was so short, that, when the President and Mrs. 
Washington were seated, there was not room for a third person, and 
she was obliged, therefore, to descend, in the face of the company, 
and to sit where she could. In other respects the ceremony was 
conducted rigorously according to the arrangements, and the Presi- 
dent made to pass an evening which was a very disagreeable one 
to him." Several of these statements were adopted by the late 
Colonel Stone, in an account which he published of the first ball 
after the inauguration ; and Mr. Hildreth, I am surprised to per- 
ceive, has repeated them in his History of the United States ; but ' 
they are all utterly untrue. That the President occupied no such 
stately position, on an elevated platform, is sufficiently apparent from 
the fact that he danced at least in two cotillions and one minuet ; 
as for Mrs Washington, she was not present, nor, for more than a 
fortnight afterwards, in the city ; and Mrs. Knox was at this time 
in a situation which prevented her appearance in society. 

On the following Thursday, the fourteenth of May, the Count 
de Moustier gave a magnificent ball in honor of the President, at 
his house in Broadway. It is described in a letter by one of the 
young women present, to a friend in Philadelphia, as remarkable 
for the good taste and elegance of all the appointments. • " I heard 



158 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tlie Marchioness," she says, " declare she had exhausted every resource 
to produce an entertainment worthy of France." Our alliance with 
that country was cele'brated by two sets of cotillion dancers in com- 
plete military costume : one in that of France, and the other in 
the American buff and blue. Elias Boudinot the next day wrote 
to his wife : " Last evening we spent at the Count de Moustier's, 
where was a most splendid ball indeed. After the President came, 
a company of eight couple formed in the other room and entered, 
two by two, and began a most curious dance, called En Ballet. 
Four of the gentlemen v/ere dressed in French regimentals, and 
four in American uniforms ; four of the ladies with blue ribbons 
round their heads and American flowers, and fom- with red roses and 
flowers of France. These danced in a very curious manner, some- 
times two and two, sometimes four couple and four couple, and 
then in a moment all together, which formed great entertainment 
for the spectators, to show the happy union between the two na- 
tions. Three rooms were filled, and the fourth was most elegantly 
set off as a place for refreshment, A long table crossed this room, 
in the middle, from wall to wall. The whole wall, inside, was cov- 
ered with shelves, filled with cakes, oranges, apjDles, wmes of all 
sorts, ice creams, &c., and highly lighted up. A number of servants 
from behind the table, supplied the guests with every thing they 
wanted, from time to time, as they came in to refresh themselves, 
which they did as often as a party had done dancing, and made 
way for another. We retired about ten o'clock, in the height of 
the jollity." 

Besides attending these balls we find that Washington was pre- 
sent also, on the sLxth of May, at the annual commencement of Co- 
lumbia College, with the Vice President, the Senate, the House of 
Representatives, and the principal ofiicers of the national and state 
administrations. On the eleventh, with the Vice President, Gover- 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 159 

nor Clinton, Count de Moustier, and many otlier citizens and foreign- 
ers of distinction, lie attended tlie theatre. And almost every day, 
for several weeks, lie was occupied more or l«ss witli receiving and 
answering the addi^esses of legislative and otlier public bodies on 
liis accession to tlie presidency. 

IV 

Mes. Washington was now fifty-seven years of age. • She had 
been a very handsome woman, thirty years before, when she mar- 
ried Colonel Washington, and in the admirable picture of her by 
Woolaston,* painted about the same time, we see something of that 
pleasing grace which is said to have been her distinction. Born of 
a good family and heiress of a liberal fortune, Martha Dandridge 

* Considering tlie great excellence of some of liis works, it is astonishing that we know so 
iittle of John Woolaston, a painter who was unquestionably of the first class ia portraiture, and 
whose colors, at the end of a century and a half, have the fresh brilliancy of their first display 
on the canvas. The industrious Dunlap says, " a gentleman of this name painted in Philadelphia 
in 1758, and in Maryland as early as 1759-60: I know nothing more of him." Several of his 
works which I had seen interested me so much that I hunted through a dozen dictionaries of 
painters for information respecting his history, and was despairing, when I saw in the '* Picture 
Collector's Manual," by J. R. Hobbes, that " John 'Woolaston, born in London about 1672, paintec? 
portraits whose only merit consisted in their being good likenesses." Horace Walpole says of the 
same person that " he painted portraits at a very low rate, though they had the merit of strong 
resemblance." The British Museiim, we learn also from the " Anecdotes of Painters," contains a 
remarkable portrait by him of Thomas Brittan, a celebrated character, with whom he was very 
intimate, and at whose concerts he used to play on the violin and the flute. That he was in 
Philadelphia as early as 1758 we know from a copy of verses addressed to him in that year by 
Frances Hopkinson ; that he was in Virginia in the previous year appears from the date of his por- 
trait of Mrs. Custis ; and he painted numerous pictures in Maryland, Virginia, and North and South 
Carolina. If Lord Orford is right as to the date of his birth, he must have been at this period 
not less than eighty-five years of age ; and if his chief merit was the faithfulness of his like- 
nesses, Mrs. Custis might well conquer him who other whiles never moved except to victory. 
But the portrait of Mrs. Washington, in her youth, which has been engraved for this volume, 
from the original, at Arlington House, is deserving of praise for every good quality which can 
enter into the composition of such a work ; and several other pictures by Woolaston, particularly 
a full length of Mrs. Smith, a sister of Mr. Rutledge, which I saw in Charleston, may be favor- 
ably compared with the later and more celebrated works of Reynolds and Lawrence. Mr. Custis, 
who is himself a painter, writing to me from Arlington House last year, says : " I have three of 
the works of Woolaston, and they compare favorably with two magnificent pictures in my col 
lection here by Vandyke and Sir Godfrey Kneller." 



160 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

liad troops of suitors before lier first marriage, at seventeen ; and 
when, a few years after, as tlie ricliest and handsomest widow in 
Virginia, Mrs. DanieL Parke Custis attracted the tender regard of 
the young soldier of Mount Vernon, there was, of course, abund- 
ant competition ; but only the brave deserve the fair, and in this 
case only the bravest could wui the faii'est. It was certainly a love 
match ; few, upon the whole, have been happier ; and its only mis- 
fortune was doubtless fortunate for the world, since greatness is 
rarely transmissible, and any descendant of Washington, however 
respectable, would have seemed in history but a small satellite, too 
frequently passing between us and his impressive and luminous 
grandeur. During the revolution Mrs. "Washington had remained 
as much as possible with the Chief. At the close of each campaign 
an aid-de-camp repaired to Mount Vernon, to escort her, and her 
arrival in camp, in a plain chariot, with postillions in white and 
scarlet liveries, was always an occasion of general happiness, and 
a signal for the wives of other principal officers to join theu' hus- 
bands. With the army, and all the successions of eminent and 
curious strangers who visited the head-quarters, at Cambridge, Val- 
ley Forge, Morristown, New Windsor, Newburgh, or elsewhere, she 
was eminently popular. The gay Marquis de Chastellux, a grand- 
son of the great d'Aguesseau, described her at the end of the con- 
test as " one of the best women in the world, and beloved by all 
about her." * In the six years from the pea,ce tiU Washington was 
chosen President, she dispensed the ample hospitalities of Mount 
Vernon with a tact and graciousness which won the applause of her 
numerous guests, many of whom left her praises in their correspon- 
dence. " Every thing about the house," said Brissot de WarviUe, 

* But there were no democrats ia those days ; "when this sort of people came into fashion, 
during the French revolution, full grown, she cherished against them an intensity of dislike which 
made it quite impossible for even the most amiable of that patriotic class to regard her with any 
affection whatever. 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 16J 

" has an air of simplicity ; tlie table is good, but not ostentatious, 
and no deviation is seen from regularity and domestic economy ; 
she superintends the whole, and joins to the qualities of an excel- 
lent housewife the simple dignity which ought to characterize a 
woman whose husband has acted the greatest part on the theatre 
of human affairs, while possessing that amiability and manifesting 
that attention to strangers which render hospitality so charming." 

]\Irs. Washington had not been ready oi had not deemed it ex- 
pedient to leave Mount Vernon with the General, on the sixteenth of 
April ; but more than a month afterward, on the nineteenth of May, 
mth her grandchildren, Eleanor Custis and George Washington 
Parke Custis, she set out for New York, in her private carriage, 
with a small escort on horseback. Approaching Baltimore, the 
same evening, she was met at Hammond's Ferry by several of the 
most respectable citizens, and received with such other demonstra- 
tions of affection and consideration as her brief stay admitted. 
Eireworks were discharged before and after supper, and she was 
serenaded by an excellent band of musicians, composed of gentle- 
men of the city. " Like her illustrious husband," we learn from the 
jom-nals of the day, " she was clothed in the manufactm-es of our own 
country, in which her native goodness and patriotism appeared to 
the greatest advantage." 

Information having reached Philadelphia, by an express appoint- 
ed for the purpose, that she would breakfast the next morning at 
Chester, two troops of dragoons, under Captains Miles and Bing- 
ham, left town at an early hour, with a numerous cavalcade of citi- 
zens, among whom were the President of the State and the Speaker 
of the General Assembly ; and having arrived at a place about ten 
miles distant they awaited there her appearance, which was presently 
announced, when the military formed and j)roceeded to receive her 
with the honors due to the commander-in-chief. The occasion re- 
21 



162 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

called those interesting scenes during tlie war, in wliicli her presence 
alleviated tlie care-oppressed hero's sufferings, and revived his 
heart and quickened his brain for those terrible conflicts and that 
profound policy which were destined to be crowned with so com- 
plete a success in our independence. As the procession defiled on 
either side for her carriage to pass, every countenance betrayed 
feelings of the most grateful and affectionate consideration. At 
Darby, a pleasant village seven miles south-west of Philadelphia, 
she was met by a brilliant company of women, in carriages, who 
attended her to Gray's Ferry, the favorite resort of pleasure-loving 
people of the city, where she partook of a collation, hastily pre- 
pared at the fashionable inn there,* for more than one hundred , 
persons. From Gray's Ferry Mrs. Eobert Morris occupied a seat 
beside Mrs. Washington, who was to be her guest, resigning her 
own carriage to young Custis, and at about two o'clock the proces- 
sion entered High street, near her residence, greeted by the ring- 
ing of bells, the discharge of thirteen guns from the park of artil- 
lery under Captain Fisher, and the cheering shouts of an immense 

* " Gray's Ferry," says the Duke de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, during Washington's ad- 
ministration, "presents a most pleasing vie-w: the toll-house, situated amid large points of rook 
which here skirt the south bank of the Schuylkill, the trees scattered here and there amongst 
them, and a considerable number of sailing vessels belonging to an adjoining inn, form altogether 
a truly interesting scene. This inn is a place of general resort for parties of pleasure in the sima- 
mer, and is frequently visited in the winter by the young people of Philadelphia, who travel 
there in sledges, dine, and sometimes pass the night there in dancing." The banks of the Schuyl- 
kill, in a few years, were celebrated by Moore, who often resorted to these agreeable shades with 
Dennie and Hopkinson ; but they were already familiar in song. Apostrophizing Gray's Ferry, 
in 1*787, a bard informs us that: 

"The Paphian queen and all her winged loves 
For this have left their high Idalian groves, 
Here, with the muses, passed their flowing honrs, 
Near the cool stream, or in the shady bowers, 
"While the sweet nine their golden harps have strung 
And "Waller's verse on Sacharissa sung. 
Thus did Apollo for his choir prepare 
A seat removed from public strife and care, 
For which the muse, in gratitude, has brought 
To Schuylkill's bank the Greek and Eoman thought ; 
There, to her Barlow, given the sounding string, 
And first taught Smith, and Humphreys, how to sing." 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 163 

concourse of joyous people. Here Mrs. Wasliington, taking leave 
of her escort, thanked the troops and citizens in the most gracious 
manner for their polite attention. 

The next day she received many demonstrations of respectful 
attachment, and recalled to Mrs. Morris, as her doors were con- 
tinually thronged with distinguished visitors, the different temper 
with which she had been received when on her way to join the 
General, at Cambridge, soon after the commencement of the revo- 
lution.'"^ So prevalent was the disaffection at that time that but few 
women called upon her, and a ball, to which she and IVIrs. Hancock 
had been invited, was postponed lest it should lead to a riot. She 
left on Monday morning, her party mcreased by Mrs. Morris, who 
attended her, in her own carriage. At an early hour the troops 
paraded with an intention to escort her as far as Trenton, but the 
weather proving rainy Mrs. "Washington requested them to return, 
and they took a respectful leave of her, a few miles from the city. 

At Trenton, where she slept on Monday night, and at Elizabeth- 
town, where she and her party were guests of the venerable Living- 
ston, Mrs. Washington was received with similar evidences of affec- 
tionate respect. 

* lu Christopher Marshall's Diary, for the twenty-fourth of November, I'ZVo, it is stated that 
a committee was appointed to wait on Lady Washington, and express the great regard entertained 
for her by the committee met at the Philosophical Hall (a sort of Committee of Safety), request, 
ing her to accept of their grateful acknowledgments and respect, " due to her on account of her 
near connection with our worthy and brave General, now exjiosed in the field of battle in de- 
fence of our rights and liberties, and desire her not to grace that company to which, we are 
informed, she has an invitation this evening," &c. Major Bayard, one of the committee, the next 
day reported that Lady Washington received them with great politeness, thanked them for their 
kind regard in giving her such timely notice, and assured them of her ready agreement with 
their wishes. Mr. William B. Eeed, in his Memoir of President Reed, explains this state of feel- 
ing at that time by saying, " Philadelphia, though the colonif.I metropolis, was of no great extent 
or population; village-like in its character, there wei'e very well defined rules of society, such • 
as in a village are apt to be offensively distinct ; these social distinctions had been rather rudely 
trampled down in the first disturbance of the revolution, and the coflduct of those connected 
with the proprietorV or other pseudo-aristocratic connections, had not been such as to conciliate 
popular regard " 



164 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

On Wednesday morning, at five o'clock, tlie President departed 
from New York, accompanied by Robert Morris and several other 
distinguished persons, in his splendid barge — manned, as on the 
occasion of its presentation to him on his own arrival at Elizabeth- 
town, by thirteen pilots, in handsome white dresses — to meet his 
wife and conduct her to her new home. As the beautiful vessel was 
seen retui'ning, great numbers gathered on the wharves ; as it ap- 
proached the battery, it was saluted with thii^teen guns ; and as its 
distinguished passengers landed, they were greeted by crowds of 
citizens, assembled to testify theii' participation in the happiness 
which the Chief must feel at this reunion with his beloved family. 

The principal women of the metropolis hastened to pay their 
compliments to the wife of the President. Mrs. George Clinton, 
Mrs. Montgomery, Lady Stirling, Lady Kitty Duer, Lady Mary 
Watts, Lady Temple, Lady Christiana Griffin, the Marchioness de 
Brehan, Madame de la Forest, Mrs. John Langdon, Mrs. Tristram 
Dalton, Mrs. Knox, Mrs. Robert R. Livingston, Mrs. Livingston of 
Clermont, the Misses Livingston, Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. Gerry, Mrs. 
McComb, Mrs. Egdar, Mrs. Lynch, Mrs.- Houston, Mrs.Provoost, Mrs. 
Beekman, the Misses Bayard, and many others, called on Thm-sday 
morning. 

Although it was the rule for the President to give no formal 
invitations, yet the day after the arrival of Mrs. Washington, 
Vice President Adams, Governor Clinton, the Count de Moustier, 
Don Diego Gardoqui, Mr. Jay, General Arthur St. Clair, Sena- 
tors Langdon, Wingate, Izard, and Few, and Mr. Muhlenberg, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, dined at his table en fa- 
mille. Mr. Wingate has left us a description of this dinner. It 
was the least showy, he says, of any he ever saw at the President's 
table. As there was no clergyman present, Washington himself 
said grace, on taking his seat. He dined on a boiled leg of mutton, 



NEW YORK METKOPOLITAN. 165 

It was Ms custom to eat of only one disli. After tlie dessert a sin- 
gle glass of wine was offered to each of tlie guests, and wlien it was 
drunk the President rose, all the company of course following his 
example, and repau*ed to the di'awing-room, whence every one 
departed as he chose, without the least ceremony. 

•On the evening of Friday, the twenty-ninth of May, two days 
after her arrival, Mrs. Washington held her first levee, which was 
attended by a numerous and most respectable company. The Pre- 
sident continued to receive such persons as chose to call upon him, 
every Tuesday afternoon, and from this time the drawing-rooms 
of the presidential residence were opened from eight till ten o'clock 
every Friday evening for visits to Mrs. Washington, at which the 
Chief was always present. These assemblages were marked by as 
little ostentation or restraint as the ordinary intercourse of respecta- 
ble circles. They were accessible to persons connected with the 
government and then* families, to distinguished strangers, and in- 
deed to all men and women whose social position entitled them to 
a recognition in polite and cultivated society, while they furnished 
opportunities for visits of civility and courtesy by the more inti- 
mate friends of the President and his household.^' 

* Colonel Stone remarks very justly of these levees or receptions, that "they were numer- 
ously attended by all that -was fashionable, elegant, and refined in society ; but there were no 
places for the intrusion of the rabble in crowds, or for the mere coarse and boisterous partisan — 
the vulgar electioneerer — or the impudent place-hunter — with boots, and frock-coats, or round 
abouts, or with patched knees, and holes at both elbows. On the contrary, they were select, and 
more courtly than have been given by any of his successors. Proud of her husband's exalted 
fame, and jealous of the honors due, not only to his own lofty character, but to the dignified sta- 
tion to which a grateful country had called him, Mrs. Washington was careful in her drawing- 
rooms to exact those courtesies to which she knew he was entitled, as well on account of personal 
merit, as of official consideration. Fortunately, moreover, democratic rudeness had not then so 
far gained the ascendency as to banish good manners; and the charms of social intercourse were 
heightened by a reasonable attention, in the best circles, to those forms and usages which indi- 
cate the well-bred assemblage, and fling around it an air of elegance and grace, which the envi- 
ous only affect to decry, and the innately vulgar only ridicule and contemn. None, therefore, 
were admitted to the levees, but those who had either a right by official station to be there, or were 
entitled to the privilege by established merit and character; and full dress was required of all." 



166 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 



The residence provided by Congress for tlie President, as lias 
already been mentioned, was number tbree Cherry street, now 
knoTVTi as the corner of Cherry street and Franklin square * It was 
regarded as " up town," and was a considerable distance from the 
most fashionable quarter, which was in the neighborhood of Wall 

* Tlie residences of the President, Vice President, and Members of Congress, as put down in 
the "Rfgister for 1189," will be interesting, not only as indicating the persons thus connected 
with the government, but as suggesting the limits of that part of the city which was occupied 
by the better classes of society. The list is here copied in full: "GEORGE WASIIIJfGTON", 
Esquire, President of the United States, and Commander of the Army and Navy thereof when 
in actual service, No. 3 Cherry street. John Adams, Esquire, Vice President, Greenwich Road. 
Senators of the United States : New Hampshire, John Langdon and Paine Wingate, 37 Broad 
street; Massachusetts, Tristram Dal ton, 37 Broad street, Caleb Strong, 15 Great Dock street; 
Connecticut, William Samuel Johnson, at the College, Oliver Ellsworth, 193 Water street; 
New York, [senators not yet chosen] ; New Jersey, Jonathan Elmer, 48 Great Dock street, Wil- 
liam Paterson, 51 Great Dock street ; Pennsylvania, William Jilaclay, at Mr. Vandolsom's, near 
the Bear Market, Robert Morris, 39 Great Dock street; Delaware, Richard Bassett and 
George Read, 15 Wall street; Maryland, Charles Carroll, 52 Smith street, John Henry, 27 
Queen street ; Virginia, William Grayson, 57 Maiden Lane, Richard Henry Lee, at Greenwich ; 
South Carolina, Pierce Butler, 37 Great Dock street, Ralph Izard, Broadway, opposite the 
French ambassador's; Georgia,* William Few, 90 William street, James Gunn, 34 Broadway; 
Samuel A. Otis, Secretary, 5 WaU street. Representatives of the United Stales : New Hampshire, 
Nicholas Gilman, corner of Smith and Wall streets, Samuel Livermore, 37 Broad street, Ben- 
jamin West, (absent); Massachusetts, Fisher Ames, George Leonard, George Partridge, and 
Theodore Sedgwick, 15 Great Dock street, Elbridge Gerry, corner of Broadway and Thames 
street, Benjamin Goodhue, Jonathan Grout, and George Thatcher, 47 Broad street; Connecticut, 
Benjamin Huntingdon and Roger Sherman, 59 Water street, Jonathan Sturges, 47 Broad street. 
Jonathan TrumbuU and Jeremiah Wadsworth, 195 Water street; New York, Egbert Benson, 
corner of King and Nassau streets, WiUiam Floyd, 27 Queen street, John Hathorn and 
Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, at Mr. Strong's, near the Albany pier, John Lawrence, 14 Wall street, 
Peter Sylvester, 45 Maiden Lane; New Jersey, Elias Boudinot, 12 WaU street, Lambert Cad- 
wallader, 15 Wall street, James Schuremau and Thomas Sinnickson, 47 Little Dock street; 
Pennsylvania, George Clymer and Thomas Fitzsimons, at Mr. Anderson's, Pearl street, Thomas 
Hartley and Daniel Heister, 19 Maiden Lane, F. A. Muhlenberg, Speaker, and General Peter 
Muhlenberg, Rev. Dr. Kunzie's, 24 Chatham Row, Tliomas Scott, at Mr. Huck's, corner of Smith 
and Wall streets, Henry Wynlcoop, at Mr. Vandolsom's, near Bear Market; Delaware, John 
Vining, 19 Wall street; Maryland, Daniel Carroll, William Smith, and George Gale, 52 Smith 
Btreet, Benjamin Contee, 15 Wall street, Joshua Seney and Michael Jenifer Stone, 15 Wall street, 
Virginia, Theodoric Bland, Josiah Parker, and Isaac Coles, 57 Maiden Lane, John Brown, 
Alexander White, John Page, and James Madison, Jan., 19 Maiden Lane, Samuel Griffin, at the 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 167 

and Broad streets, though the houses of several of the more respec- 
table famihes were in the vicinity. It was large, and its rooms gene- 
rally of such ample dimensions as were necessary in the home of a 
public character apt to be surrounded by numerous visitors. Be- 
fore the arrival of Washington Mr. Osgo6d was requested, by a 
resolution of Congress, to " put the house and the furniture thereof 
in proper condition for the residence and use of the President of 
the United States," and a part of the preparation thus authorized 
was the removal of the partition between two of the large apart- 
ments, to make a drawing-room sufficiently capacious for the Presi- 
dent's receptions and pubhc audiences. The furniture was ex- 
tremely plain, but " in keeping and well disposed, and the whole 
arrangements," according to a correspondent of Mr. Hancock, were 
such as to " give promise of substantial comfort." Mrs. "Washing- 
ton had sent on by sea from Mount Vernon many articles of taste 
and luxury, including a few pictures, vases, and other ornaments, 
which had been presented to the General by his European friends. 
The family plate was melted soon after it was brought to the city, 
and reproduced in more elegant and harmonious forms. At the 
house of Mr. Custis I was shown recently the silver tea service as 
it was used at Mrs. Washington's private parties. Each piece dis- 
plays the arms of the Washington family. The salver is massive, 

White Conduit House, near tlie Hospital, Richard Bland Lee and Andrew Moore, 15 Wall 
street ; Soutli Carolina, Edanus Burke, Daniel Huger and Thomas Tudor Tucker, at Mr. Huck's, 
Wall street, WiUiam Smith, Broadway, next to the Spanish minister's, Thomas Sumter, 40 
Wall street; Georgia, Abraham Baldwin, 193 Water street, James Jackson and George Mat- 
thews, 63 Broadway, John Beckley, Clerk of the House of Representatives, 19 Maiden Lane, 
Joseph Wheaton, Sergeant at Arms, 16 George street, Gifford Dally, door-keeper, back of the 
Trinity Church, North River. [It was the intention of the editors to have here inserted the 
names of aU the public oflBcers appointed under the new Constitution, but the different depart- 
ments not being yet established, it is not in their power to insert them this year.] " 

In the following year the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, the Attor- 
ney General, and the Chief Justice, occupied houses in the lower part of Broadway, the Secretary 
of the Treasury a house on the corner of Wall and Broad streets, and the Postmaster Genera 
his house in Cherry street. 



168 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

twenty-two and a half inches long and seventeen and a half wide, 
of an oval shape, without any ornament except a small beading on 
the edge of the rim. The state coach was the finest cariiage in 
the city. It was usually di*awn by four horses, but when it con- 
veyed the President to IFederal Hall, always by six. The body was 
of the shape of a hemisphere, and it was cream-colored, and orna- 
mented with cupids, supporting festoons, and with borderings of 
flowers around the panels. 

The President afterwards removed to the commodious house 
owned by Mr. McComb, since known as Bunker's Hotel, in Broad- 
way, near the Bowling Green. The situation was more pleasant 
and the house was larger and more convenient than that in Cherry 
street. His office for the transaction of business was here on the 
first floor, on the right hand of the hall, as it was entered from 
the street, and the drawing-rooms were on the left. The rent of 
the house in Broadway was regarded as extremely high ; it was 
twenty-five hundred dollars a year. 

The Vice President occupied ]\Irs. Jej)hson's beautiful rural re- 
sidence at Eichmond Hill. It was the most delightful place on the 
island, and suited better than any other those . ideas of official dis- 
tinction which Mr. Adams was said to have acquired abroad. Early 
in the revolution it was General Washington's head-quarters, and 
he evinced a profound emotion when revisiting its chambers and 
the venerable oaks about it, soon after it came into the Vice Pre- 
sident's possession. Mrs. Adams describes it in a letter to her sis- 
ter, Mrs. Shaw, as " a situation where the hand of nature has so 
lavishly displayed her beauties, that she has left scarcely any thing 
for her handmaid, art, to perform." " The house in which we re- 
side," she says, " is situated upon a hill, the avenue to which is 
interspersed with forest trees, under which a shrubbery, rather too 
luxuriant and wild, has taken shelter, owing to its having been de- 





MQBig^ociraDMKf i^mi^m^'j 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 169 

prived by deatli, some years since, of its original proprietor, who 
kept it in perfect order. In front of tlie liouse tlie noble Hudson 
rolls his majestic waves, bearing upon bis bosom innumerable sma]l 
vessels, wbicL. are constantly forwarding tbe ricb products of tbe 
neigbboring soil to tbe busy band of a more extensive commerce. 
Beyond tbe Hudson rises to om' view tbe fertile country of tbe 
Jerseys, covered witb a golden harvest, and pouring fortb plenty 
libe tbe cornucopia of Ceres. On tbe rigbt band, an extensive 
plain presents us witb a view of fields covered witb verdure, and 
pastures full of cattle. On tbe left, tbe city opens upon us, inter- 
cepted only by clumps of trees, and some rising ground, wbicb 
serves to beigbten tbe beauty of tbe scene, by appearing to conceal 
a part. In tbe. background, is a large flower-garden, inclosed witb 
a bedge and some very bandsome trees. On one side of it, a gi'ove 
of pines and oaks fit for contemplation. 

" ' In this path 
How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each step 
Shall wake fresh beauties ; each last point present 
A different picture, new, and yet the same.' " 

In a letter to Tbomas Brand-HoUis, sbe adds, " A lovely variety 
of birds serenade me morning and evening, rejoicing in tbeir bberty 
and security ; for I bave, as mucb as possible, prohibited tbe grounds 
from invasion, and sometimes almost wished for game laws, when 
my orders have not been sufficiently regarded. Tbe j)artridge, the 
woodcock, and the pigeon, are too great temptations to the sports- 
men to withstand." 

Mrs. Adams was one of the remarkable characters of her age. 
Sbe was not without tenderness and womanly grace, but her dis- 
tinction was a masculine understanding, energy, and decision, fitting 
her for tbe bravest or most debcate parts in affairs, and in an emi- 
nent degree for that domestic relation which continued harmonious 
22 



170 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tlirougli so many cliangeful years, herself unclianged always, and 
making lier own life a portion of lier liusband's in a manner tliat 
illustrates the noblest ideas we have of marriage. In the long pe- 
riods of necessary separation, during the war and the diplomatic 
career of Mr. Adams in Europe, she managed his moderate estate 
with a discretion which saved him from the mortification of such 
poverty in his last days as embittered the closing years of some of 
his illustrous contemporaries. At the age of forty, the definitive 
treaty of peace having been signed, and public duties still detain- 
ing, her husband abroad, she left her modest and now quiet home 
in Braintree to mingle in the shows of a magnificent court, where 
intercourse was governed by set forms and the stateliest courtesy, 
and it became her duty to sustain not only the dignified position 
of the minister, but the social fame of her country. The daughter 
of the village clergyman and the wife of the village lawyer — for 
it was in such capacities only that she had yet seen the world — 
thus suddenly translated into scenes so new, and so different a life, 
found in her native abilities and habitual elevation, of feeling and 
demeanor, ample compensation for all that aristocratical cultivation 
which was illustrated in every thing about her, and commanded a 
hiixher consideration for herself than for the rank she shared with 
her husband. She remained iA Paris and London four years, and 
had but recently returned, as we have already seen, in the letters 
of her daughter, when summoned to New York by the election of 
Mr. Adams to the office of Vice President. She was now forty-five, 
and still in the most perfect maturity of her presence and intelli- 
gence. In coming to New York- she had the happiness of being 
reunited with her daughter, Mrs. Smith. The family apj)ear to 
have been all much attached to each other, all proud of each other, 
and the cii'cumstances of their only daughter were continually a 
subject of the tenderest sohcitude on the part of Mr. and JVIi'S. Ad- 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 171 

ams, and not less so witli their sons, especially witli John Quincy 
Adams, wlio made of Ms sister Ms most confidential friend and 
correspondent/^ 

Mrs. Knox had been one of the heroines of the revolution, nearly 
as well known in the camp as her husband, whom she had married 
against the wishes of her family, who anticipated a more splendid 
alliance than that love planned for her with the clever and dash- 
ing bookseller. Captain Henry Knox, of the Boston Grenadiers, 
who had not the shghtest claim to an aristocratic lineage. But 
Knox justified her preference, and gave her a prouder name than 
was ever dreamed of by Mr. Secretary Fluckner, her father. As 

* When Jolm Quincy Adams, in 1837, had reached the full term of three score years and ten, 
his affection for the memory of Mrs. Smith, his only sister, remained fresh and unabated. In the 
•winter of that year, while he was a member of the House of Representatives, a grand-daughter 
of Mrs. Smith was on a visit at the metropolis, and requested of him some lines for her Scrap- 
book. He immediately complied ; and from the autograph of the lines then written we copy 
the following tender reference to that sister who had so long before departed: 

"Thy motber, bless her! is my niece; 
JIe,r mother ! — no ! till blood shall cease 

"Within these veins to flow — 
No 1 never, never from my heart 
Her cherished image shall depart, 

In pleasiu'e, or in woe 1 

' Though many a year has past away 
Since she resigned her mortal clay '• 

To slumber in the tomb, 
Tet Memory brings her form to mo 
In vernal blossom, jnst like thee. 
Unconscious of her doom! 

' Her days were short and checkered o'er 
"With joy and sorrow's mingled store. 
And fortune's treacherous game — 
"• But never since creation's hour. 

Sent forth from Heaven's almighty power, 
A purer spiiit came ! 

' Cousin, forgive this falling tear : 
She was my sister — and how dear, 

No language can express ; 
And when upon thy blooming face. 
Her lovely lineaments I trace, 

I see thee, and I bless! 

* Yes! may the God of truth and love 
His choicest blessings from above 

Profuse around thee shed — 
And near tlie throne of Grace Divine, 
My sister's voice unite with mine, 
To shower them on thy head I " 



172 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

lias been mentioned in a previous cliapter, Mrs. Knox was " enor- 
mously large ; " sKe and Iier husband were perhaps the largest couple 
in the city ; and both were favorites, he for really brilliant conver- 
sation and unfailing good humor, and she as a lively and meddlesome 
but amiable leader of society, without whose cooperation it was 
believed, by many besides herself, that nothing could be properly 
done, in the drawing-room or the ball-room, or any place indeed 
where fashionable men and women sought enjoyment. The house 
of the Secretary of War was in Broadway, and it was the scene of 
a liberal and genial hospitahty. 

Mrs. Izard, of South Carolina, had been famous for her beauty 
and spirit, but was now passed her prime, though not older than 
Mrs. Adams. She was the grand-daughter of Etienne de Lanci, a 
Huguenot nobleman who came to this country in 1686. In 1767 
she married Ralph Izard, of Charleston, a man of accomplishments 
and liberal fortune, who had been educated at the University of 
Cambridge, and after returning to America had passed his winters 
in South Carolina and his summers in New York. Four years after 
his marriage he went to London, where he lived several winters, 
in a brilliant society. Displeased with the conduct of the minis- 
try toward the colonies, he visited the Continent, but becoming 
wearied of travel, went back to London, where he exerted his in- 
fluence to avert the approaching war, without success, and in 1777 
removed his family to Paris, and in a few months to Florence, be- 
ing appointed Commissioner from Congress to the Grand Duke of 
Tuscany. His subsequent diplomatic services, and his personal re- 
lations with Franklin, Deane, and others, cannot here be stated. He 
was always accompanied by his wife, who was very handsome, 
witty, and fond of adventure. In London her portrait was painted 
by Gainsborough, and I was shown in Charleston, by her grandson, 
, Mr. Manigault, one of Copley's finest pictures, a very large " fomily 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 173 

piece*' representing Mr. and Mrs. Izard in a Eoman palace, T\itli a win- 
dow in the background looking ont on one of the most interesting 
parts of tke Eternal City. ]\Ir. Izard returned to Ckarleston in 1Y80, 
and kis wife and children three years afterward. On the forma- 
tion of the new government- he was chosen one of the senators of 
South Carolina. 

Of the men in the city, not immediately connected "\vith the 
government, the greatest beyond all comparison was Alexander 
Hamilton. His extraordinary genius, knowledge, and activity, 
would have made him illustrious in any society, but his character 
was in some respects beyond the grasp of common minds, and it is 
doubtful whether he was justly appreciated at this time by a very 
large number, though Washington knew him well, and regarded 
him with the sincerest respect, affection, and admiration. It is true 
that Hamilton was something of a 7'oue^ but his gallantries were 
subject to a certain law of honor ableness which even in such affairs 
is not altogether impossible ; and in his public conduct he was as 
inflexibly just as he was unapproachably able. Doubtless in the 
formation of our Constitution the profound sense of "Washington 
was the deciding authority, but the suggesting intelligence was 
Hamilton's, and he is to be regarded above all other men as the 
creator of the institutions of modern liberty. His residence was 
on the corner of Wall and Broad streets, nearly opposite Federal 
Hall, and with a party of his friends he had witnessed from his 
balcony the inauguration of Washington. He had built, however, 
a beautiful house which he called " The Grange," a few miles up the 
island, which was his last home in the world. 

Aaron Burr, during this period, was at Albany much of the 
time, busy with official duties, ^nd in writing love-letters to his wife 
and instructions for the education of Theodosia, that marvellous 
girl whose beauty, wit, and melancholy history constitute one of 



174 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tlie most romantic cliapters in tlie liistory of American private 
life. Burr in Albany lived with a pretty and tidy widow, and 
rarely dined or passed an evening abroad. Near the end of July 
he finished important business which had detained him in the courts, 
"received thanks, and twenty half joes," with promises of more of 
both commodities, and returned to New York. He had been mar- 
ried to Mrs. Prevost, a charming woman, the widow of a British 
officer, in July, IV 82. For several years he lived in the house at 
Richmond Hill, now occupied by the Vice President. His interest 
made it necessary to reside more near the centre of business, and 
he removed into the city. Mrs. Burr did not go into society. I 
do not find her name in the lists of dinner parties, nor is she often 
referred to in contemporary letters. She loved " My lord," as she 
playfully addressed her husband, and was always perfectly content 
in his presence, or inconsolable by the presence of others for his ab- 
sence. Although his whole life from boyhood had been steeped in 
profligacy,* and his amours were as well known as those of any 
hero of scandalous history, he seems really to have loved her with 
much of the tenderness she felt for him. While he was in Albany 
he wrote to her, " Multiply your letters to me ; they are all my 

* It is iiunecessary to i-efer here to the extraordinary vicissitudes of Burr's subsequent life ; 
but that it may not be suspected that his infirmities are too strongly stated, the followiug remarks 
are transcribed from his memoirs, written by his most partial and most faithful friend, Mr. Davis : 
" It is truly astonishing how any individual could have become so eminent as a soldier, as a 
statesman, and as a professional man, who devoted so much time to the other sex as was devoted 
by Colonel Burr. For more than half a century of his life they seemed to absorb his whole 
thoughts. His intrigues were without number ; his conduct most licentious ; the sacred bonds 
of friendship were unhesitatingly violated when they operated as barriers to the indulgence of 
his passions. For a long time he seemed to be gathering and carefully preserving every line 
written to him by any female, whether with or without reputation, and when obtained they were 
east into one common receptacle — the profligate and corrupt by the side of the thoughtless and 
betrayed victim. All were held as trojihies of victory, all esteemed alike valuable. How shock- 
ing to the man of sensibility I how mortifying and heart-sickening to the intellectual, the artless, 
and the fallen fair I Among these manuscripts were many the production of highly-cultivated 

minds They were testimonials of the weakness of the weaker sex, even where genius and 

learning would seem to be towering above his arts." 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 175 

solace ; tlie last six are constantly witliin my reach ; I read tliem ^ 
once a day at least." And she, years after their marriage, was half 
distracted every time his duties or his pleasures called him away : 
" I feel as if my guardian angel had forsaken me," she writes on 
one occasion ; " tell me, why do I grow every day more tenacious 
of your regard ? can my affection increase ? is it because each hour 
proves you more deserving ? Heaven preserve the hushand of ray 
heart ! and teach me to cherish his love, and deserve it." In 1789 
Burr was thirty-three years old. He was small but well formed, 
with a handsome face, by some described as striking, and eyes jet 
black and uncommonly brilliant and piercing. In public, he had 
an air of eminent authority, though in the drawing-room his man- 
ner was singularly graceful, gentle, and fascinating. 

The roll of attorneys of the Supreme Court at this time in the 
city of New York consisted of one hundred and tw«nty-two names. 
Among these were James Duane, admitted in August, 1Y54 ; Rich- 
ard Nichols Harrison, in January, 1769 ; Burr, in January, 1782 ; 
Hamilton, in July, 1782 ; Jay, in October, 1758 ; James Kent, in 
January, 1785 ; Morgan Lewis, in October, 1782 ; Robert Troup, 
in April, 1782 ; and Robert R. Livingston, Edward Livingston, 
Egbert Benson, John Watts, Gouverneur Morris, Richard Varick, 
Josiah Ogden Hoffman and James Lansing, the dates of whose ad- 
mission I do not discover. It may well be doubted whether the 
city has ever since, notwithstanding its prodigious growth in every 
thing else, embraced as much legal learning, eloquence, or dignity 
of character, as in that year, when the " New York Directory " 
was contained in ninety-six very small octodecimo pages. 

Dr. John H. Livingston and Dr. WiUiam Linn were ministers of 
the Reformed Dutch Church. Dr. Linn was a fine scholar and 
a graceful and fervid orator ; an honorary member of the Cin- 
cinnati, and one of the chaplains to Congress ; and his simple and 



176 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

agreeable manners and pleasing conversation, enriched witli unusual 
stores of information, made liim a favorite in tlie best society. His 
son, Jolm Blaii' Linn, wlio afterward became a celebrated j)reaclier, 
and whose " Valerian " and " Powers of Genius " display considerable 
taste and skill in poetry, was at this period a law student in the 
office of Mr. Hamilton, but much more fond of the theatre than the 
court-rooms. Dr. Rodgers and Dr. John JMason occupied the two 
Presbyterian churches. The greatest of American pulpit orators, 
John M. Mason, had recently graduated at Columbia College, and 
was now studying divinity with his father. The learned Dr. Kun- 
zie* ministered in the German Lutheran Church. The " easy, good- 
tempered, gentlemanly and scholarly Dr. Provoost,f" as President 
Duer describes him^ was bishop of the Episcopal Church, one of the 
chaplains of Congress, and a welcome guest at the dinner tables 
of all his friends. 

* Jolm Christopliei' Kunzie, D, D., was now about forty-five years of age. lie had been, 
before his removal to New York, fourteen years a preacher, in Philadelphia, and a professor in 
the college in that city. In Columbia College he filled the chair of oriental languages. A 
valuable collection of coins and medals which he owned is now preserved in the rooms of the 
New York Historical Society. His house was in Chatham Row, and during the sessions of 
Congress Mr. Speaker Muhlenberg and General Mulilenberg boarded with him. 

f Dr. J. W. Francis, in the only memoir we have of Bishop Provoost, gives us a very pleasing 
account of his character. " His philanthropy," says this learned writer, " was of the most ex- 
tensive order, and his beneficence was called into almost daily exercise. His private charities 
were often beyond what his actual means justified. As a patriot he was exceeded by none, and 
his sensibility to the honor and interests of his coimtry were of the liveliest nature. In the rela- 
tions of husband and parent he exhibited all the kindly and endearing affections which ennoble 
our species. " As a scholar, he was deeply versed in classical lore, and in the records of ecclesias- 
tical history and church pohty; to a very exact knowledge of the Hebrew, he added a profound 
acquaintance with the Greek, Latin, Frencih, German, Italian, and other languages. It is aSirmcd 
that as a literary recreation he made a new poetical version of Tasso. In a knowledge of the 
natural and physical sciences he also made considerable progress. Of these, botany was his 
favorite. He had attended, while at Cambridge, lectures on this branch of natural history, and 
became conversant with the classification of plants, from Coesalpinus to Linnaius, whose system 
was then taught by the Cambridge professor. So great was his delight in botanical pursuits, that 
he formed an extensive index to the elaborate Historia Plantarum of John Baushin, whom he 
calls the prince of botanists, in a blank leaf of the work, the manuscript of which bears date 
1*766, with his name and distinctions, 'Sam. Provoost, D.D. St. Pctr. Cantab, et Lugd. Bativ.' " 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 177 

Tlie popular physicians were Dr. Samuel Bard, Dr. John Bard, 
Dr. Wright Post, Dr. Bailey, Dr. Eassam, and Dr. Jones. 

VL 

The anniversary of the Declaration of Independence which suc- 
ceeded the organization of the constitutional government was cele- 
brated in all parts of the Union with remarkable enthusiasm. In 
New York a committee of the Society of the Cincinnati waited up- 
on the President, in the morning, and its chairman. Baron Steuben, 
addressed him, saying, " The Society of the Cincinnati of the State 
of New York have instructed this delegation to present to you, 
sir, theii' sentiments of the profoundest respect. In common with 
all good citizens of the United States of America, they join their 
ardent wishes for the perservation of your hfe, health, and pros- 
perity. In particular, they feel the highest satisfaction in contem- 
plating the illustrious Chief of our armies, by the unanimous vote 
of an independent people, elected to the highest station that a dig- 
nified and enlightened country can bestow. Under your con- 
duct, sir,, this band of soldiers was led to glory and to conquest, 
and we feel confident that under yom* administration our country 
will speedily arrive at an enviable state of prosperity and happi- 
ness." The Chief answered, " I beg you, gentlemen, to return my 
most affectionate regards to the Society of the Cincinnati of the 
State of New York, and to assure them that I received their con- 
gratulations on this auspicious day with a mind constantly anxious 
for the honor and welfare of our country, and can only say that 
the force of my abihties, aided by an integrity of heart, shaU be 
studiously pointed to the support of its dignity and the promotion 
of its prosperity and happiness." 

The society afterwards marched in procession, attended by Col- 
onel Bauman's artillery and a band of music, to St. Paul's church, 
23 



178 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

where, in tlie presence of the members of Congress and a great 
concourse of distinguislied citizens and strangers, Alexander Ham- 
ilton delivered an oration on the life and character of General Na- 
thaniel Greene. ITie President was too unwell to leave his house, 
but Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Adams, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Jay, and 
a great number of other women, were present, and made the assem- 
blaore one of the most brilliant ever seen in New York. 

The military of the city paraded in the fields, and were review- 
ed by several eminent officers. As they passed the house of the 
President, he appeared at the door, in the uniform he had worn in 
the revolution, to receive their salutations, but was not sufficiently 
recovered to address them. 

The Society of the Cincinnati dined at the old City Tavern in 
Broad street, and the officers of the city troops at Fraunces's Hotel 
in Cortlandt street ; and both parties paid to the name of Washing- 
ton all possible honors. 

VII. 

The health of the President was far from good when he arriv- 
ed in New York, and the extraordinary labors which he astonished 
those about him by performing so readily, so patiently, and so ad- 
mirably, in the few weeks following his inauguration, brought on 
at length a malady so serious that for several days his life was re- 
garded as in imminent danger. His disease was anthrax, so malig- 
nent as to threaten mortification. He was attended, night and day, 
by Dr. Samuel Bard, a physician of the highest personal as well as 
professional respectability, whose skilful treatment, and a naturally 
strong: constitution, enabled him to survive an illness the most pain- 
ful and trying he had ever endured, but he never entii-ely recover- 
ed from its effects. Dr. Bard relates that on one occasion, bemg 
left alone with him, Washington looked steadily in his face and 



NEW rORK METROPOLITAN. 179 

asked his candid opinion as to tlie probable termination of the dis- 
ease ; adding, with that placid firmness which marked his address, 
"Do not flatter me with vain expectations: I am not afraid to die, 
and, therefore, can bear the worst." The doctor expressed hopes of 
his recovery, but acknowledged his fears. The patient then said, 
" Whether to-night, or twenty years hence, makes no difference : I 
know that I am in the hands of a good Providence." By the bless- 
ing of that good Providence his life was spared to a country, which 
never stood in greater need of his amazing wisdom and unparalleled 
and as yet unresisted influence. Dr. Bard from this period was one 
of his intimate friends. 

On Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of July, he was well enough to 
receive visits of compliment, but the papers intimated that until 
his health should be more perfectly restored he would see his friends 
but once a week. He had hardly gained strength to go abroad 
when he heard of the death of his mother, at Fredericksburo- on 
the twenty-fifth of August, after a long and very painful illness. 
She was eighty-two years of age, and had been forty-six years a 
widow. " Though a pious tear of affection and esteem is due to 
the memory of so revered a character," says a writer from Fred- 
ericksburg, two days after her decease, " yet our grief must be 
greatly lessened, from the consideration that she is relieved from 
the pitiable infii^mities attendant on an extreme old age. It is usual 
when virtuous and conspicuous persons quit this terrestrial abode 
to publish elaborate panegyrics on their characters, but' suffice it to 
say that she conducted herself through this transitory life with vir- 
tue and prudence worthy the mother of the greatest hero that ever 
adorned the annals of history." Washington himself wrote on the 
occasion to his only sister, Mrs. Lewis : " Awful and affecting as the 
death of a parent is, there is consolation in knowing that Heaven 
has spared ours to an age beyond which few attain, and favored her 



180 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

witli thefull enjoyment of lier mental faculties, and as mucli bodily 
strength as usually falls to tlie lot of fourscore. Under these con- 
siderations, and a liope that she is translated to a happier place, it 
is the duty of her relatives to yield due submission to the decrees 
of the Creator." 

At the fost public levee after the death of the President's mo- 
ther was known in the city, several members of the two houses of 
Congress, and other respectable persons, wore the customary signs 
of mourning, and the event was alluded to with feeling and deli- 
cacy in the principal pulpits on the following sabbath. 

VIII. 

All the details of administration had been left by the Consti- 
tution for the decision of Congress, and the Senate and House of 
Representatives at length agreed upon the creations of departments 
and the limitations of their functions, and passed such other laws 
as were necessary for the organization of affairs. 

The formation of his cabinet was a matter of the deepest per- 
sonal interest to the President. The secretaries were to be his 
counsellors as well as the executors under his authority of the prin- 
cipal business of the nation ; and on their selection, therefore, would 
depend in a large degree the success of his government. For the 
Department of State he chose Mr. Jefferson, who had already soli- 
cited and obtained permission to return from France, where he had 
filled the office of minister plenipotentiary, as the successor of Frank- 
lin, with unquestionable ability, during all the period of the forma- 
tion and adoption of the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton was ap- 
pointed to the most laborious and difficult place, the Secretaryship 
of the Treasmy ; his extraordinary capacities were equal to any 
position, and he had shown himself to be particularly qualified for the 
management of the finances. General Knox was continued in the 



NEW YORK METROPOLITAN. 181 

war office, wMcli lie had occupied for several years, under tlie con- 
federation. Edmund Randolph, who had heen governor of Virgi- 
nia, and a very successful lawyer, was made Attorney General, and 
Samuel Osgood, of New York, Post Master General. 

The President's opinion of Mr. Jay, induced him to ask his ac 
ceptance of any place he might prefer, and he was gratified when 
that illustrious character consented to become Chief Justice of the 
United States. In communicating to him his appointment he said 
" I have a full confidence that the love which you bear to our coun 
try, and a desire to promote the general happiness, will not suffei 
you to hesitate a moment to bring into action the talents, know- 
ledge, and integrity, which are so necessary to be exercised at the 
head of that department which must be considered the keystone 
of om' political fabric." For Mr. Jay's colleagues on the bench the 
President selected William Gushing, at this time Chief Justice of 
Massachusetts ; James Wilson, who had been conspicuous in the 
ajffairs of Pennsylvania, and in the Convention had been chairman 
of the committee which reported the Constitution ; Robert H. Har- 
rison, Chief Justice of Maryland, who had been formerly one of 
the confidential secretaries of the commander-in-chief; John Blair, 
one of the judges of the Vii'ginia Court of Appeals; and John 
Rutledge, the eloquent and brave spirited statesman of South Caro- 
lina. Judge Harrison declined, and his place was conferred upon 
James Iredell, of North Carolina. 

On the twenty-sixth of September the first session of the first 
Congress was brought to a close. Before theii' adjournment the 
two houses appointed a joint committee to wait on the President 
and " request that he would recommend to the people of the United 
States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by 
acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many and signal favors 
of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity 



182 THE KEPUBLICAN COUKT. 

peacefully to establish a constitution of government for tlieir safety 
and liappiness." The creators of the Constitution do not seem ever 
to have dreamed of the wretched demagoguism which has discov- 
ered that it is unconstitutional for the government to recognize the 
existence and kindness of the Deity. On the third day of October, 
therefore, Washington acceded to this request, and recommended 
that the twenty-sixth of November " be devoted by the people of 
these states to the service of that gi*eat and glorious Being who is 
the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will 
be ; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere 
and humble thanks for his kind care and protection of the people 
of this country previous to their becoming a nation ; for the sig- 
nal and manifold mei'cies and the favorable interpositions of his 
providence, in the course and conclusion of the late war ; for the 
great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since 
enjoyed ; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have 
been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety 
and happiness, and particularly the national one now recently insti- 
tuted ; for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, 
and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge ; 
and, in general, for all the great and various favors which he has 
been pleased to confer upon us." 




3SiD8A^.io JJli.^\.ilJlJii;:jJ.Xi3(ii)Jt;3 Hil'-i^lilXlt (ii)'JWt;yS. 



-a-e^iy^t/'fy'/^ 



I 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 



Soon after tlie adjournment of Congress "Wasliington made ar- 
rangements for a journey tlirougli New England. He anticipated 
perhaps some pleasure from revisiting tlie earlier scenes of liis com- 
mand during the revolution,* but lie was most anxious for tlie resto- 
ration of his health, and to observe the condition and disposition 
of the people of that part of the Union. 

He set out from New York on Thursday morning, the fifteenth 
of October, in his own chariot, drawn by four Virginia bays, and 
accompanied by two of his secretaries, Tobias Lear and Major 
Jackson, on horseback. The Chief Justice, the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and the Secretary of War, escorted him as far as Eye, 
where Mr. Jay had his country residence. 

As he approached New Haven, in the forenoon of Saturday, he 
was met by a deputation of members of the legislature of Con- 
necticut, escorted by the guards of the Governor, who conducted 
him, amid crowds of people, to his lodgings. Governor Hunting- 
ton, soon after, presented to him a congratulatory address, and the 

* As early as 1785 Washington had written to Mr. James Warren of Massachusetts: "It 
would afford me great pleasure to go over those groimds in your state, with a mind more at ease 
than when I travelled them in 1775 and 1776, and to unite in congratulation on the happy 
change, with those characters who participated the anxious moments we passed in those days, 
and for whom I entertain a sincere regard." 



184 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Congregational ministers of tlie city — Ezi'a Stiles, James Dana, 
Jonathan Edwards, Samuel Wales, and Samuel Austin — all men 
of eminent reputations, also addressed him, saying, in reference to 
his recent illness, " We most sincerely rejoice in the kind and gra- 
cious providence of God, who has been pleased to preserve your 
life during your late dangerous sickness, and to restore you to such 
a degree of health as gives us this opportunity to express our joy, 
and affords us the most pleasing hopes that your strength may be 
firmly reestablished." To the governor and to the clergy he made 
appropriate replies, and to the latter observed : " The tender interest 
you have taken in my personal happiness, and the obhging manner 
in which you express yourselves on the restoration of my health, are 
so forcibly impressed^ on my mind as to render language inadequate 
to the utterance of my feelings. If it shall please the Great Dis- 
poser of events to listen to the pious supplication which you have 
presented in my behalf, I trust the remainder of my days will 
evince the gratitude of a heart devoted to the advancement of 
those objects which receive the approbation of Heaven, and pro- 
mote the happiness of our fellow men. My prayers are offered at 
the throne of Grace for your happiness and that of the congrega- 
tions committed to your care." The next day he attended divine 
service at Trinity Church in the morning, and at the Congregational 
church of Dr. Edwards in the afternoon. The Governor, the 
Lieutenant Governor, the Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives, 
the Treasurer, and Roger Sherman, dined with him. 

Accompanied by a troop of cavalry, and a large number of 
citizens on horseback, he left New Haven on Monday morning, and 
the same evening arrived at Hartford, where he was received in an 
appropriate manner by the public authorities and by the people. 
On Tuesday he visited the manufacturing establishments of that 
city, and on Wednesday proceeded on his journey. 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 185 

Information having readied Worcester, on Thursday evening, 
that the President vrould be in that village early the next morn- 
ing, about forty citizens assembled on horseback before sunrise, on 
Friday, and proceeded as far as Leicester line to welcome him and 
escort him into town. On notice being given of his approach, five 
cannon were fired for the New England states — three for those 
which had accepted the Constitution, one for Vermont, which was 
expected immediately to come into the Union, and "one as a call 
for Ehode Island to be ready before it should be too late." When 
he came in sisrht of the meetino:-house eleven cannon were fired. 
He viewed with attention the artillery, as he passed, and expressed 
to the people his sense of the honor conferred upon him. He 
stopped at " The United States Arms " to breakfast, and, to gratify 
the inhabitants, proceeded through the rest of the town on horse- 
back. The Worcester Spy, in giving an account of these circum- 
stances, refers to the President as " His Highness." The discussion 
of the subject of titles was not yet ended ; Eepresentatives were 
called " Honorable," Senators and members of the Cabinet, " Most 
Honorable," and in many of the journals it was insisted that the 
President should be addi'essed by some distinctive and pecuHar 
designation. It was alleged in illustration of the necessity of such 
a style as might distinguish him from other eminent persons, at 
least when travelling, that, as he approached one of the villages 
between New Haven and Worcester, a messenger was sent forward 
to inform the keeper of the inn where he intended to pass the 
night, that " the President was near by, and wished to be accommo- 
dated with a little necessary refreshment, and lodging." The host 
was absent, but his wife, supposing it was Doctor Manning, Presi- 
dent of Rhode Island College, who was an occasional visitor, gen- 
erally having with him Mrs. Manning, whom she did not feel quite 
well enough to entertain, sent word that " the President must go 
24 



186 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

on to the next tavern." The landlady soon, but too late, found out 
her error, and grievously lamented that she had not known it was 
the illustrious Washington who intended to honor her house. 
" Bless me ! " she exclaimed, " the sight of him would have cured 
me of my illness, and the best in the house and in the town should 
have been at his service." 

A cavalcade from Worcester attended the President to the line 
of Marlborough, where he was met by a handsomely uniformed 
comjDany of horse, who escorted him to Williams's Tavern, where 
he dined, and thence to Captain Flagg's, in Weston, where he 
lodged and breakfasted. At the latter })lace he was met by. a cornier 
from Governor Hancock, inviting him with his suite to dine with 
his Excellency the next day, and expressing regret that the Presi- 
dent had declined a previous request to become his guest while 
he should remain in Boston. Washington had written to him, from 
Brookiield, that from a wish to avoid giving trouble in private 
families he had determined on leaving New York to decline all such 
invitations, and, that this rule might be observed, had caused lodg- 
ings in Boston to be secured for him. 

On Saturday morning he was met, soon after he started, by a 
troop of horse from Cambridge, and as he passed through Water- 
town he was saluted by the artillery of that village. At Cambridge 
he had occupied as his head-quarters, in I'T'TS, a noble mansion* 

* Now the resideuce of Mr. Longfellow, "who, in a beautiful poem " To a Child," recalls its history ; 

,.. • " Once, ah, once, ■witbin these walls. 

One whom memory oft recalls, 
/ The Father of his Cuuntry dwelt; 

And yonder meadow, hroad and damp. 
The fires of the besieging camp 
Encircled with a burning belt ; 
Up and down these echoing stairs, 
Heavy with the weight of cares, 
Sounded his majestic tread ; 
Yes, within this very room 
Sat he in those hours of gloom, 
"Weary both in heart and head." 

Washington's revisiting the house, under these circumstances, is a fine subject for the meditative 
and graceful muse of its present owner. 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 187 

about half a mile from tlie college, and lie now stopped an liour 
to revisit its rooms and walk about its grounds. 

From Ms old head-quarters the Chief proceeded on horseback, 
leaving his chariot in the rear, and as he entered the village green 
he was saluted with a discharge of artillery, under the direction of 
General Brooks, who met him there at the head of about one thou- 
sand uniformed militia. 

11. 

A disagreement had arisen between the governor and a com- 
mittee of the selectmen, as to which party had the right to receive 
the President at the boundary of the city. The committee con- 
tended that as he was about to visit the town, it was the especial 
office of the municipal authorities to bid him welcome, though it 
would have been perfectly proper for the governor to have met 
him on the frontier of the state. From this cause there was con- 
siderable delay, during which the President, who had already ad- 
vanced through Roxbury, was exposed to a cold and damp wind, 
extremely disagreeable and alarming to a valetudinarian. He in- 
quired the reason of the difficulty, and when it was explained did' 
not conceal his impatience. Of one of his secretaries. Major Jack- 
son, he asked whether there was not some other way into the city, 
and was in the act of turning his horse when informed that the con- 
troversy was over, and that he would be received by the delegates 
of the corporation. 

The peoj^le had assembled on the mall, at ten o'clock, where an 
immense procession had been formed, which, preceded by the band 
of the French squadron, then in the harbor, marched to the city 
line, where the governor had previously ordered a parade of the 
military. Halting here, their ranks were opened, so as to make 
an avenue, all the way to the State House, bordered, it was sup- 



188 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

posed, Iby twenty thousand persons. At one o'clock tlie appi'oach 
of the President was announced by federal salutes from the Rox- 
bury Artillery, the Dorchester Artillery, posted on the celebrated 
Dorchester Heights, the Boston Artillery, at the town line, and 
the garrison of Castle William ; a royal salute from His Most 
Christian Majesty's squadron; and the ringing of all the bells of 
all the churches, which continued fifteen minutes. 

The selectmen having expressed to the President the pleasure 
the citizens enjoyed on his arrival, and given him a hearty welcome, 
the marshals arranged the procession in the following order : 

Five companies of the City Troops, under Colonel Bradford, 

Officers of the Municipal Government, 

Council and Lieutenant Governor of the State, in carriages, 

United States Marshal, 

The President 

In his continental uniform, on a white horse, attended by Major Jackson and 

Mr. Lear, his Secretaries, also on horseback, 

The Vice President, 

Distinguished Citizens, in carriages, 

Committee of Arrangements, 

Clergymen, Lawyers, Physicians, 

Civil Officers, 

Officers of the Revolutionary Army, 

&c. &c. &c. 

followed by between forty and fifty societies, and bodies of mechanics 
and tradesmen, carrying flags of white silk, upon which were emblar 
zoned appropriate devices, legends and mottoes. 

On arriving at the old brick meeting house a halt was ordered, 
and the President was conducted through a Triumphal Ai'ch, erected 
under the direction of Judge Dawes, across Main street — display- 
ing on one side, " To the Man who Unites all Hearts," and on the 
other, "To Columbia's Favorite Son" — into the Senate Chamber, 
by the east door of the State House, and thence to an outside gal 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 189 

lery, supported by tliirteen columns, over the west door. His ap 
pearance liere was greeted witli prolonged acclamations, the streets 
and every window and liouse-top, as far as could be seen, being 
filled with people. He was accompanied to this gallery by Vice 
President Adams, by the venerable patriot and scholar, James Bow- 
doin, and by the Lieutenant Governor, the Council, his secretaries, 
and several other gentlemen ; and as soon as he had acknowledged, 
by gracefully bowing to all around, the enthusiasm with which he 
was received, Daniel Rea, " the famous vocalist of that town," sup- 
ported by a full chorus, began singing in a clear and loud voice, 
from a canopy over the Triumphal Arch, an ode which had been 
written for the occasion. When this was concluded the procession 
defiled before the gallery, and soon after the military escorted the 
President to his lodgings, at Mrs. Ingersoll's in Court street, where 
he was visited by many distinguished characters, among whom were 
Viscount de Ponteves Gien,* and the other officers of His Most 
Christian Majesty's squadron. 

In the evening the pubhc buildings generally and many private 
residences were brilliantly illuminated; the French frigates, the 
Active ^nd the Sensible, moored off the end of Long wharf, dis- 
played each more than a thousand lanterns ; and from the ships, 
the mall, and the principal streets, there were exhibitions of fire- 
works. 

The Governor had invited the President with his suite to take 
a family dinner at Hancock House, and the invitation had been 
accepted, but as the Governor had not come out to meet him, or to 
call upon him after his arrival at Mrs. Ingersoll's, Washington 

* The Viscount de Ponteves and the captains of the squadron under his command, declined 
the invitation of the Committee of Arrangements to take a seat in the balcony erected at the 
State House, as the ordinances of the king required them to be on board their ships whenever 
the chief magistrate of a nation arrived at the place at which they lay, to give him the customary 
Baiutes. 



i90 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

avoided going near liis residence. In some negotiations wliicli fol- 
lowed it was intimated on tlie part of Hancock, tliat as the repre- 
sentative of tlie sovereignty of Massacliusetts lie tliought he should 
receive the first visit even from the President of the United States. 
His friends, however, remonstrated with him, urging that a just 
apphcation of his own principle entitled the chief magistrate of 
all the states to precedence, wherever he might be, within their 
limits ; and he reluctantly assented to this view of the case, and the 
next evening went in his coach, enveloped in red baize, to Washing- 
ton's lodgings, and was borne in the arms of servants into the house. 
The public were informed that this delay was in consequence of the 
Governor's ill health. 

On Sunday the President attended King's Chapel in the morn- 
ings and one of the Congregational churches in the afternoon, and 
on Monday he rode about the city, accompanied by several leading 
characters, returned the visit of the Governor, and received the 
officers of the French squadron, to whom he expressed his intention 
of going on board their ships the following day. 

On Tuesday morning, soon after breakfast, he received the 
clergy, who presented an appropriate address, which he answered 
in his happiest manner. Among them was Dr. Belknap, to whom, 
when he was introduced, he said, " I am indebted to you, sir, for 
the History of New Hampshii'e, and it gave me great pleasure." 
The amiable doctor records the circumstance with peculiar satisfac- 
tion, in his diary, and it is mentioned that this was the only instance 
in which he thus noticed the approbation bestowed upon his hterary 
labors. Soon after came the Society of the Cincinnati, accompa- 
nied by the Viscount Ponteves, the Marquis de Traversay, and the 
Chevalier de Braye, members of the society in France (tlie Mar- 
quis de Galissoniere, who had also served in the revolution, being 
detained on board his ship by indisjDOsition), and received and an- 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 191 

ewered their address. They said, "After tlie solemn and endear- 
ing farewell on tlie banks of tlie Hudson, wHcli our anxiety pre- 
saged as final, most peculiarly pleasing is tlie present unexpected 
meeting. On this occasion we cannot avoid the recollection of the 
various scenes of toil and danger through which you conducted us, 
and while we contemplate the trying periods of the war, and the ' 
triumphs of peace, we rejoice to behold you, induced by the unani- 
mous voice of your country, entering upon other trials, and other 
services, alike important, and in some points of view, equally haz- 
ardous. For the completion of the great purposes which a grate- 
ful country has assigned you, long, very long, may your invaluable 
life be preserved ; and as an admiring world, while considering 
you as a soldier, have wanted a comparison, so may your \Ti'tues 
and talents as a statesman, leave it without a parallel." He said in 
his answer, " Dear indeed, is the occasion which restores an inter- 
course with my faithful associates, in prosperous and adverse for- 
tune ; and enhanced are the triumphs of peace, participated by 
those whose virtue and valor so largely contributed to procure them. 
To that vii'tue and valor your country has confessed her obhgations ; 
be mine the grateful task of adding the testimony of a connection, 
which it was my pride to own, in the field, and it is now my hap- 
piness to acknowledge, in the enjoyment of peace and freedom." 
At one o'clock, he received and replied to an addi'ess from the 
Governor and Council of the commonwealth. At four o'clock he 
was entertained by the Lieutenant Governor and the Council (the 
ill health of the Governor preventing his attendance) at a sump- 
tuous dmner, given at Faneuil Hall, where Warren, Otis, and Adams, 
had fanned into life the embers of the Eevolution. Among the 
guests were the Vice President, ex-governor Bowdoin, the judges of 
the Supreme Court, the President of Harvard College, the clergy 
of Boston, the admiral and captains of the French squadron, and 



192 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

other civil and milital-y officers, citizens, and strangers, to the nuni- 
Iber of one hundred and fifty. 

On Wednesday, at eleven o'clock, he went on board the flag* 
ship of His Most Christian Majesty's fleet, in a barge having at her 
bow the flag of the United States and at her stern that of France, 
steered by a major and rowed by midshipmen, all di-essed in red. 
He was received on deck with the homage offered to kings : a salute 
was fired, and " the officers took off their shoes, and the crew all 
appeared with their legs bared." Viscount Ponteves introduced 
him to the officers, about thirty, who had fought in America dur- 
ing the war, and afterwards to the other gentlemen of the fleet, of 
which he ^dsited two more ships, and then returned to the shore, 
accompanied by the admiral. In the afternoon he dined with 
Governor Bowdoin, and in the evening attended a brilliant assem- 
bly at Concert Hall, at which were present Vice President Adams, 
Mrs. Hancock,* Lieutenant Governor Samuel Adams and Mrs. Ad- 
ams, the Viscount Ponteves, the Marquis and Marchioness de la Ga- 
lissoniere, and a great number of other persons distinguished in af- 
fairs or in society. The women of Boston wore as a sash, during the 
President's visit, a broad white ribbon, with G. W., in golden letters, 
encircled with a laurel wreath, in front, and with the American eagle 
on one end, and on the othej? the French j^(g%r de lis^ embroidered. 
The Marchioness de Traversay, besides a sash of this description, 
wore on the present occasion, on the bandeau of her hat, the initials 
G. W., and an eagle, set in brilliants on a ground of black velvet. 

* Mrs. Hancock, nee Qumcy, was a fine looking woman, higli-bred, and higli-si^irited, and 
generally dressed with great care and an ornate elegance. When Lafayette was last in this 
country he made an early call upon her, and the once youthful chevalier and unrivalled belle 
met as if only a summer had passed since their social interviews during the perils of the Eevo- 
lution. She was as attentive to taste in dress, in her very last days, as when in the circles of 
fashion. She " would never forgive a young girl," she said, " who did not dress to please, nor 
one who seemed pleased with her dress." There is a fine portrait of her, by Copley, in the pos- 
Bcssion of Mrs. Gushing, who occupies the ancient mansion of Governor Wentworth, near Ports- 
mouth. 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 193 



ni. 

At eight o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the thirtieth of 
October, the President departed from Boston. His visit had been 
upon the whole a very delightful one, but besides the little contro- 
versy on a point of etiquette with Governor Hancock, he had been 
subjected to some vexation by the imperfect arrangements for his 
reception, and on leaving was obhged to set a noticeable example 
of punctuality to the city troops, whose offer to accompany him 
he had accepted the previous evening. At the very moment ap- 
pointed for his departure his chariot started from Mr. Ingersoll's, 
though the military escort had not yet made its appearance. A 
large cavalcade, however, and many carriages, were in readiness, and 
Major Gibbs's cavalry came up with them as they were passing the 
bridge over the river Charles, which was finely decorated with the 
flags of all nations. At this moment he was saluted with eleven 
guns from Captain Colden's artillery, stationed on the Charlestown 
Heights. At Cambridge he was received in the Philosophy Room* 
of the college, by the president and corporation, who, in a formal 
address, declared their gratitude for his revolutionary services and 
his patriotism in consenting to preside over the new government. 
Reminding him of the depressed state of the college when he first 
took command of the army at Cambridge, " its members dispersed, 
its literary treasures removed, and the muses fled from the din of 
arms then heard within its walls," and comparing the danger with 
which it had been surrounded with its present prosperous and 

* The Philosophy Room at this period -was hung on one side with full length portraits of four 
eminent benefactors of the college, Thomas Hollis, Nicholas Boylston, Thomas Hancock and 
Ezekiel Hersey. In the centre of this group was a portrait of the late Earl of Chatham, and a 
view oi Mount Vesuvius, in eruption. The other sides were occupied with works of Copley, 
and in one corner was deposited the celebrated Planetarimn of Mr. Pope. The floor was covered 
with a rich carpet, presented by Governor Hancock. 

25 



194 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

peaceful condition, tliey invoked the blessings of Heaven on him 
who had rendered such distinguished ser^dces to it and to their 
country. The President, ia reply, reciprocated their affectionate 
sentiments and kind wishes, and expressed his hope that the muses 
might "long enjoy a tranquil residence" within the walls of that 
distinguished seat of learning. 

Proceeding on his journey, he stopped a few minutes at Lynn, 
where the gentlemen who had accompanied him from Boston took 
their leave, and reached Marblehead in time to dine with General 
Glover. On arriving at the boundary of Salem he was met by the 
selectmen of the town, and their chairman, Mr. Northey, a Quaker, 
welcomed him in an address equally agreeable for its brevity and 
apparent sincerity: "Friend "Washington," he said, taking the Pre- 
sident by the hand, " we are glad to see thee, and in behalf of the 
inhabitants bid thee a hearty welcome to Salem." Salutes were 
then fired from two parks of artillery, at different points, and the 
President, quitting his carriage, mounted a beautiful white horse, 
on which he proceeded to Main street, amid continued cheers and 
the ringing of numerous bells. After reviewing several regiments, 
in Main street, he was escorted by a company of infantry, followed 
by the principal citizens, in procession, to the Court House, into the 
balcony of which he was conducted by Mr. Goodhue, and immedi- 
ately was greeted with huzzas by the great concourse of people, 
and by an ode sung by a select choir from a temporary but richly 
ornamented gallery, erected for the purpose. In the evening the 
public buildings were illuminated, there was an exhibition of fire- 
works, and the President attended a ball, at which a brilliant cir- 
■ cle displayed the taste, elegance and. beauty of the Salem women. 

He left Salem at nine o'clock on Friday morning, escorted by 
two troops of cavalry, and a large number of citizens — riding on 
horseback, to gratify the people, as far as Essex Bridge, which was 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 195 

ornamented witli tlie flags of different countries. At Newburyport, 
wliere lie arrived about three o'clock, lie was received with, military 
honors, an address was presented by the magistrates, and there 
were displays of rockets in the evening. "The joy of the ia- 
habitants was extreme, and their .hospitality equal to their joy; 
for all who came into the town on the occasion were provided for 
without charge." 

On Saturday morniag he proceeded toward Portsmouth. The 
Marine Society of Newburyport had prepared a handsome barge, 
with rowers dressed in white, to convey him across the Merrimack 
river, at Amesbury, and dming the passage he received a royal salute 
from the French ship Teneriffe, and was welcomed by the military 
of the place with appropriate demonstrations. At ten o'clock the 
cortege reached the line of Massachusetts, where the President dis- 
mounted and took leave of the escort which had thus far attended 
him. He was met here by General Sullivan, President of the State of 
New 'Hampshire, with four troops of hght-horse, and a numerous com- 
pany of public and prij^ate characters, among whom were the mem- 
bers of the Executive Council, senators Langdon and Wingate, and 
the chiefs of the departments of the government of the common- 
wealth, who accompanied him to Portsmouth. All the way the road 
was lined with spectators, from the neighboring country, who cheered 
him as he passed. At Greenland, where he stopped half an hour, 
he mounted his horse and rode through the ranks of men, women, 
and children, assembled to behold " the man whom God approves 
and the people delight to honor." As he entered the metropolis 
he was saluted with thirteen guns from Colonel Hacket's artillery 
and b^the same number from the Castle. The ships in the harbor 
were gaily di'essed, every door and window was thronged with wo- 
men, and in the street all the trades were arranged, alphabetically, 
in procession. The bells rung joyful peals all the while untH he 



196 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

reached tlie State House. Here lie was conducted by the President 
and Council through the Senate chamber into a balcony, where odes 
were sung, and several companies of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, 
under the command of General Cilley, defiled before him, each offi- 
cer saluting him as he passed ; after which he was conducted to his 
lodgings. 

IV. 

PoETSMOUTH at this period was the seat of a refined and gene- 
rous hospitality, and few cities in America could boast of a more 
cultivated or polite society. The situation of the town was ex- 
tremely pleasant, and its commercial prosperity had bordered the 
streets with beautiful houses, surrounded by every thing'that evin- 
ces comfort and refinement. Mrs. Lee informs us in the interestins: 
memoir of her father, the reverend Dr. Joseph Buckminster, who 
was one of the ministers at the time of Washington's visit, that 
there were more private carriages and livery servants in Ports- 
mouth, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, than in any 
other place in New England. " In the old meeting-house ancient 
and venerable forms loomed out of the distant dimness, arrayed in 
all the splendor of the dresses of the court of George the Third '. 
immense wigs, white as snow, coats trimmed with gold lace, em- 
broidered waistcoats, ruffles of delicate cambric, cocked hats, and 
gold-headed canes — costumes that would now be assumed for a 
masquerade." 

The President's arrival was on Saturday, and the next day he 
attended religious services in two of the churches : in the morning 
hearing Mr. Ogden, at Queen's Chapel, iand in the afternoon Dr. 
Buckminster, at the First Congregational Church. He was accom- 
panied by Governor Sullivan, Senator Langdon, and his two secreta« 
ries, and was escorted to his pew at Queen's Chapel by the marshal of 



THE EASTERN TOUR. 197 

tlie district and two cliurcli wardens, witli their staves ; and a similar 
ceremonial was preserved at Dr. Buckminster's. Both, pastors re- 
ferred, in their discom^ses, to the numerous virtues of the dignified 
personage whose appearance had diffused such general joy and 
awakened in every breast such grateful sensations, and felicitated 
their numerous hearers on the happy occasion that called them to- 
gether, to offer up their unfeigned thanks to the Father of Mercies 
for his goodness, and to implore a continuance of his gracious bene- 
diction on the head of the beloved Chief. 

On Monday, accompanied by General Sullivan, Senator Lang- 
don, and the United States Marshal, he made an excursion about 
the harbor, in a barge, rowed by seamen dressed in white frocks. 
Two other barges followed, one containing the French consul and 
the President's secretaries, rowed by sailors in blue jackets, and 
round hats, decorated with blue ribbons; and the other a band, 
who executed a variety of pieces of music. The President went 
on shore for a few minutes at Kittery, in the Province of Maine, 
and afterward landed at the beautiful seat of Colonel Wentworth, 
whence, with his attendants, he returned to the city by land, and 
was again saluted with discharges of artillery, from Church Hill. 
The party dined, with several other distinguished persons, at Mr. 
Langdon's. 

The next day the President and Council of New Hampshire 
gave to the President of the United States a public dinner, at which 
were present one hundred persons, including the principal officers 
of the state government, the clergy, the members of the bar, and 
the most eminent private citizens. After the fii'st toast, in honor 
of the illustrious guest, he himself rose and offered, " The State 
of New Hampshire," and both, of course, were drunk with every 
sign of enthusiasm. In the evening he attended a ball, and was 
introduced to more than seventy women. After he was seated a 



198 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

song was sung, witli accompaniments by tlie band, and tlie danc 
ing followed till a late hour. 

On the morning of Wednesday, tlie fifth of November, Wash- 
ington left Portsmouth for New York. His route was through the 
southern part of New Hampshii'e, and by way of Springfield, in 
Massachusetts, to Hartford,* where he remained several days, to 
rest from the fatigues of his journey. He reached New York a 
little after noon, on Friday, the thirteenth, having been absent 
twenty-nine days. 

V. 

This journey was eminently agreeable 'and satisfactory to the 
President. He was-pleased with the apparent and general well- 
being and happiness of the people, and could not have been unmoved 
by the evidences of universal and profound respect and affection 
with which he was greeted at every place through which he passed. 
It was indeed a continuous triumphal march from its commencement 
to its end, unparalleled in any history, for the spontaneous enthusiasm 
which lined all his route with men, women, and children, of every 
rank and condition, who almost worshipped him. Wherever he 
moved he was surrounded by thousands, anxious to obtain a sight 
of his person, or to greet him with acclamations of joy and praise. 

* From Hartford he -wrote, on tlie eiglitli of November, the following note to Mr. Taft, near 
Uxbridge, Massachusetts: "Sir: Being informed that you have given my name to one of your 
sons, and called another after Mrs. Washington's family, and being moreover much pleased with 
the modest and innocent looks of your two daughters, Patty and Polly, I do for these reasons 
send each of these girls a piece of chintz; and to Patty, who bears the name of Mrs. Wash- 
ington, and who waited rciore upon us than Polly did, I send five guineas, with which she may 
buy herself any little ornaments she may want, or she may dispose of them in any other manner 
mors agreeable to herself. As I do not give these things with a view to have it talked of, or 
even to its being known, the less there is said about the matter the better you will please me ; 
but, that I may be sure the chintz and money have got safe to hand, let Patty, who I dare say 
IS equal to it, write me a line informing me thereof, directed to ' The President of the United 
States, New York.' I wish you and your family well, and am your humble servant." 



THE EASTERN TOUK. 199 

Sometimes crowds would follow him for miles, so that in many in- 
stances he stopped and entreated them to return to their homes 
and occupations, lest theii- devotion to him should cause some incon- 
venience or be injurious to their interests. 

" The very trees bore men : and as the sun, 
When from the portal of the East he dawns 
Beholds a thousand birds upon the boughs 
To welcome him with all their warbling throats, 
So did the people, in their gayest trim, 
Upon the pendant branches speak his praise ; 
Mothers, who covered all the banks beneath, 
Did rob the crying infant of the breast. 
Pointing the hero out, to make them smile ; 
And climbing boys stood on their father's shoulders. 
Answering their shouting sires with tender cries, 
To make the concert up of general joy." 

If in some instances the praise he was constrained to hear, in the 
addresses presented by the public authorities, rehgious societies, 
literary institutions, or other bodies, seemed extravagant, and was 
received by his modest spirit as undeserved, he never doubted or 
had reason to doubt that it was as sincere as it was freely offered. 
But above all other suggestions of happiness in this celebrated 
journey, was the assurance, afforded by every day's observation, that 
the country was in a great degree recovered from the ravages of 
war, that federal principles, the constitution, and the administration 
of the government, were generally approved, and that industry, en- 
terprise, and confidence, under the existing condition of affairs, were 
leading every community to a satisfying prosperity. 

VI. 

It had been hoped by some of the President's friends that Mrs. 
Washington would accompany him to New England, but she did 
not do so. During the war she had become personally acquainted 
with Mrs. Mercy Warren, a sister of James Otis, and a public 



200 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

writer of considerable transient popularity ;* and to 'her, soon after 
the President's return, slie wrote tlie following letter, whicli Mr. 
Sparks justly describes as " creditable to her understanding, her 
heart, and her views of life : " 

" Your very friendly letter, of last month, has afforded me much 
more satisfaction than all the formal compliments and empty cere- 
monies of mere etiquette could possibly have done. I am not apt to 
forget the feelings which have been inspired by my former society 
with good acquaintances, nor to be insensible to their expressions 
of gratitude to the President ; for you know me well enough to do 

* Mrs. Warren was now more than sixty years of age, and had little left of that beauty which 
is seen in Copley's portrait of her. She was engaged in the composition of her " History of the 
Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution," a work which was not published 
until many years after, and had in press her " Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous," which 
appeared in a few weeks after Washington was in Boston. Her contributions to periodicals 
have never been collected, but she appears to have written much in this way. In the Massachu- 
ectts Magazine, for January, 1*790, she has a criticism of Chesterfield, which some admiring 
contemporary bard describes as follows : 

" The learniSd Hunter's classic sense 
'Gainst Dormer proved a weak defence; 
In vain his pen with zealous rage 
Attacked my lord's insidious page ; 
The man meant well, but Stanhope's wit 
His character before had bit : 
Smart Philip drew a scientific bear — 
Fops, fribbles, said, 't was Hunter, to a hair 1 
In vain did Melmoth, more refined, 
In Sedley's vices paint the mind 
Ignoble Chesterfield possessed : 
False coloring gave it such a zest 
That brainless witlings cried ' Pardi, 
G'est Hen otitree — the blind may see.' 
But soon as "Wakren conned the book, 
Her eagle eye, with piercing look, 
At once unravelled simulation's maze. 
And won the meed of universal praise." 

In reply to some complimentary verses, addressed to her, in the same year, Mrs. Warren thus 

-efers to her own history : 

"Me 'fortune favors' not, though 'friends caress,'— 
'With every wish ' denied the 'power to bless.' 
On ' pleasure's throne ' my seat was never reared. 
On 'life's gay theatre ' I ne'er appeared : 
In sorrow's vale were passed my earliest years— 
There did I learn the luxury of tears ; 
And now, deprived of health, no power I boast— 
Like a wrecked vessel on some desert coast. 
Or a weak barque upon the ocean tossed. 
Each cheering, social scene, to me Is lost." 



THE EASTERN TOUK. 201 

me the justice to believe that I am fond only of what comes from 
the heart. Under a conviction that the demonstrations of respect 
and affection to him originate in that source, I cannot deny that I 
have taken some interest and pleasure in them. The difficulties 
which presented themselves to view upon his fii'st entering upon 
the Presidency seem thus to be, in some measure, surmounted. It 
is owing to the kindness of om' numerous friends, in all quarters, that 
my new and unwished-for situation is not indeed a burden to me. 
When I was much younger, I should probably have enjoyed the 
innocent gayeties of life as much as most persons of my age ; but 
I had long since placed all the prospects of my future worldly hap- 
piness in the still enjoyments of the fireside* at Mount Vernon. 
" I little thought when the war was finished, that any circum- 
, stances could possibly happen, which would call the General into 
public life again. I had anticipated that, from that moment, we 
should be suffered to grow old together, in solitude and tranquillity. 
That was the fii^st and dearest wish of my heart. I will not, how- 
ever, contemplate, with too much regret, disappointments that 
were inevitable ; though his feelings and my own were m perfect 
unison with respect to our j)redilection for private Hfe, yet I can- 
not blame him for having acted according to his ideas of duty in 
obeying the voice of his country. The consciousness of having 
attempted to do all the good in his power, and the pleasure of find- 
ing his fellow citizens so well satisfied with the disinterestedness of his 
conduct, will doubtless be some compensation for the great sacrifices 
which I know he has made. Indeed, on his journey from Mount 
Vernon to this place, in his late tour through the Eastern States, 
by every public and every private information which has come to 
him, I am persuaded he has experienced nothing to make him re- 
pent his having acted from what he conceives to be a sense of in- 
dispensable duty. On the contrary, aU his sensibihty has been 
26 



202 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

awakened in receiving sucli repeated and unequivocal proofs of sin- 
cere regard from his countrymen. 

" Witli respect to myself, I sometimes think the arrangement is 
not quite as it ought to have been, that I, who had much rather 
be at home, should occupy a place with which a great many younger 
and gayer women would be extremely pleased. As my grand-chil- 
dren and domestic connections make up a great portion of the feli- 
city which I looked for in this world, I shall hardly be able to find 
any substitute, that will indemnify me for the loss of such endear- 
ing society. I do not say this because I feel dissatisfied with my 
present station, for every body and every thing conspu^e to make 
me as content as possible in it, yet I have learned too much of the 
vanity of human affaii'S to expect fehcity from the scenes of pubhc 
life. I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever 
situation I may be ; for I have also learned, from experience, that 
the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispo- 
sitions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the 
one or the other about with us in om* minds, wherever we go. 

" I have two of my grand-children with me, who enjoy advan- 
tages in point of education, and who, I trust, by the goodness of 
Providence, will be a great blessing to me. My other two grand- 
children are with their mother in Vii^ginia." 



THE SEASON OF EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 



Theee was a great deal of social elegance in New York at the 
close of tlie last century, tliougli it must be confessed tliat in this 
respect the city could not be favorably compared with Philadelphia. 
Several families had held in the Province a sort of baronial suprem- 
acy, and they were now eminent in private life or public service ; 
but there were no women here exercising that sway over manners 
and pleasures which was held in Philadelphia for many years by 
Mrs. Bingham. The Livingstons, Clintons, Van Rensselaers, Beek- 
mans, Courtlandts, Philipses, Jays, De Lanceys, Osgoods, and other 
powerful families, many of whom were represented by manorial 
lords, possessed the solid distinctions of great wealth and good 
sense ; but the piquant comparative criticisms of society in New 
York and Philadelphia, written by Miss Rebecca Franks, soon after 
the close of the war, had still a certain truth, which was easily re- 
cognized by persons familiar with the private life of both cities. 

New York was the metropolis of the United States, under the 
Constitution, less than two years, and this period embraced but 
one winter. In the May and June following the inauguration there 
were a few public balls, and probably many private ones, but the 
ill health of the President, the death of his mother, and other cu*- 



204 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

cumstances, prevented liiiii from attending any subsequent to tliat 
given by tlie Count de Moustier, wliich lias already been described 
in these pages, until after liis return from tlie tour tlirougli tlie 
Eastern States, about tlie middle of November. Mrs. Washington 
liad little inclination for sucli amusements, and was never once pre- 
sent at any ball in New York after the close of the revolution, not- 
withstanding what Mr. Jefferson says on this subject. 

II. 

The adjournment of Congress, on the twenty-sixth of Septem- 
ber, had been followed by a general dispersion of the families at- 
tracted to New York by the exigencies of the public business, and 
but few of them returned before the latter part of December. In 
the mean time, however, there were several accessions to of&cial 
circles, and busy preparations for a gay winter season. 

Of New England families perhaps not one had been more hon- 
ored and trusted than that of Wolcott, and certainly no family in 
all the continent had preserved through its American generations 
a purer fame. Henry "Wolcott emigrated from the mother country 
in 1630, to escape religious persecution, and after a short residence 
at Dorchester, in Massachusetts, settled in Windsor, Connecticut 
His grandson, Eoger Wolcott, was distinguished for military and 
civil services, and occupied in succession the most important offices 
in the colony, ending with that of governor. His son Oliver en- 
tered the army at twenty-one years of age, as a captain in the 
New York forces, and served on the northern frontier until the 
peace of Aix la ChapeUe. He also became governor of Connecticut, 
and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His son, 
the second Oliver Wolcott, now between twenty-nine and thirty 
years of age, was in the autumn of IT 8 9 appointed auditor of the 
Treasury, and we possess in his memoirs not only a mine of the 



EiaHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 205 

ricliest material for public history, but many very interesting 
glimpses of society and tlie cii^cumstances of common life in tbe 
memorable period wlien the first President of the Eepublic was the 
centre of the court, or most eminent circle, about the seat of gov- 
ernment. Among his classmates had been Joel Barlow, Zephaniah 
Swift, Uriah Tracy, and Noah "Webster ; and after his admission 
to the bar, and settlement in Hartford, he had been of that famous 
company of " Connecticut wits,"* including Trumbull, the author of 

* On the ninth of December, Triunbull wrote to Woleott, from Hartford, a characterfstic let- 
ter, in -which he says, " Our circle of friends wants new recruits. Humphreys, Barlow, and you 
are lost to us. Dr. Hopkins has an itch of running away to N"ew York, but I trust his indolence 
will prevent him. However if you should catch him in your city I desire you to take him up 
and return him, or scare him so that we may have him again, for which you shall have sixpence 
reward and aU charges. Webster has returned and brought with him a very pretty wife. I 
wish him success, but I doubt in the present decay of business in our profession, whether his 
profits will enable him to keep up the style he sets out with. I fear he will breakfast upon 
Institutes, dine upon Dissertations, and go to bed supperless. I cannot conceive what Barlow is 
doing. After being eighteen months abroad, you tell me he has got so far as to see favorable pros- 
pects. If he should not effect something soon, I woidd advise him to write ' The Vision of Bar- 
low,' as a sequel to those of Columbus and McFingal. Pray congratulate Colonel Humphreys, in 
my name, on his late promotion in the diplomatic line. If I understand the matter rightly, he 
holds the same post which Crispe promised George in the Vicar of Wakefield. You remember 
Crispe told him there was an embassy talked of from the synod of Pennsylvania to the Chicka- 
saw Indians, and he would use his interest to get him appointed Secretary. Tell him not to be 
discouraged too much at his want of success. The President has tried him on McGillivray fir^t, 
and he did not suit the skull of the savage, but we cannot argue from that circumstance that he 
could not fit as easy as a full bottomed wig upon the fat-headed, sot-headed, and crazy-headed 
sovereigns of Europe. Tell him this story also, for his comfort, and to encourage his hopes of 
speedy employment : A king being angry with an ambassador, asked him whether his mastei 
had no wise men at Court, and was therefore obliged to send him a fool? ' Sire,' said the other, t^ 
'my master has many wise men about his court, but he conceived me the most pi-oper ambassa- 
dor to your majesty.' Upon this princii^le I am in daily expectation of hearing that he is ap- 
pointed minister plenipo. to George, Louis, or the Stadtholder. Por is not his name Humps? 
You must know that at this present writing I am confined with this paltry influenza. I kept it 
for six weeks at the stave's end, as Shakspeare's Malvolio did Beelzebub, but it has driven me 
into close quarters at last. Indeed I could not expect to avoid it, for old Wronghead says it is a 
Federal disorder, bred out of the new Constitution at New York, and communicated by infection 
from Congress. I see the President has returned all fragrant with the odor of incense. It must y^ 
have given him satisfaction to find that the hearts of the people are united in his favor; but the 
blxmt and acknowledged adulation of our addresses must often have wounded his feelings. W^' 
have gone through all the popish grades of worship, at least up to the Hyperdoulia. This tour 
has answered a good political purpose, and in a great measure stilled those who were clamoring 
about the wages of Congress and the salaries of officers." — Gibbs's Ristory, i. 25. 



206 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

"McFingal," Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, antlior of " Tlie Hy^Docrite's Hope " 
and numerous political satires, Richard Alsop, one of tlie writers 
of "The Echo "and "The Political Green House," Joel Barlow, 
who was abeady celebrated for his " Vision of Columbus," Noah 
Webster, Theodore D wight, and others, whose intellectual displays 
had won for that city a reputation altogether unique in the annals 
of American intelligence. 

Before Wolcott accepted the place to which he was invited he 
wrote to Oliver Ellsworth to ascertain something of the cost of 
living in New York, that he might decide whether the modest an- 
nuity of fifteen hundred dollars would enable him to sustain those 
outward appearances which he regarded as suitable for an officer of 
such rank in the administration. Ellsworth made the necessary 
inquiries and answered that a house with a stable would cost about 
two hundi'ed dollars a year, the best wood four dollars a cord, oak 
wood two dollars and a half a cord, hay eight dollars a ton, and 
' marketing twenty-five per centum more than in Hartford ; conclud- 
ing, that one thousand dollars a year would suj)port him and his 
family very well. This was encouraging, and he came down to the 
city to complete his investigation, as to expenses, duties, and gene- 
rahties, and consented to take the situation. " This," he wrote to 
his wife, " on consultation with my friends, I think will be best for 
us. If we are careful, we may save some property, more than I 
can expect to in Connecticut, and by observation of the people in 
public service, and other respectable families, I am confident that 
no change in our habits of living will in any degree be necessary. . . . 
The example of tlie F resident and Ms family tvill render parade 
and expense improper and disreputable.''^ That last sentence is 
very significant, and has all the force it could receive from consider- 
ations the most favorable for its honesty and justice, as an indica- 
tion of the republican simplicity maintained by Washington in his 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 207 

houselioM, and in whatever was connected witli his relations to 
society. New York appears to have been envied and slandered by 
nearly all the other cities, from the time when it was decided to 
make it even the temporary seat of government. Soon after the 
inauguration, the Boston Gazette congratulated with the country 
upon the discovery that " our beloved President stands unmoved in 
the vortex of folly and dissipation which New York presents." 
Wolcott, a keen observer, educated to puritanical ideas, thought 
better of it. After a residence of about three months he wrote 
to his mother, " There appears to be great regularity here ; honesty 
is as much in fashion as in Connecticut ; and I am persuaded that 
there is a much greater attention to good morals than has been sup- 
posed. So far as an attention to the Sabbath is a criterion of reli- 
gion, a comparison between this city and many places in Connecti- 
cut would be in favor of New York." 

Another person, now for the first time connected with the ad- 
ministration, was Edmund Randolph, the Attorney General, whose 
courtly manners and fine colloquial abilities had caused him to be de- 
scribed as the " first gentleman of Yii'guiia." His father, who had 
held important situations in the colonial government, had proved 
a Tory when the difficulties with England came to a crisis, and left 
the country with Lord Dunmore. Edmund Randolph had apphed 
himself to the law, and had risen to such popularity as to succeed 
Patrick Henry in the governorship of Yirginia, in 1786. He was a 
large man, finely formed, and always dressed with care and ele- 
gance. His young kinsman, John Randolph* of Roanoke, had been 

* Nothing could be more amusing than the correspondence which John Randolph maintained 
for some time about this period with Mrs. Morris. AU the littleness, superciUousness, and puerile 
jealousy, of his nature, were displayed in it, as amply as if these qualities were already in their 
fullest development. Several years ago I read a copy of it, then in possession of my most loved 
and honored but since most unfortunate friend, Charles Fenno Hoffman. It has never been 
printed, but those who have read any of the manuscript copies of it wiU not easily forget the 
clever and dramatic management of Mrs. Morris, by which Randolph was exposed and outwitted 



208 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

in tlie city ever since the preceding April ; tliougli but sixteen years 
of age, and lank, awkward, and ill-dressed, lie was known to eveiy 
body about town ; and it required little observation and insigbt to 
perceive tbat be was a very extraordinary character. Thomas Tu- 
dor' Tucker was a brother of his father-in-law, Theodore Bland was 
his uncle, Richard Bland Lee was his cousin, and he had several 
other relatives in the two houses of Congress. 

Charles Carroll,* senator from Maryland, is described by Sulli- 
van as " rather a small and thin person, of very gracious and pol- 

* " Charles Carroll's family," says Lord Brougham, " was settled in Maryland ever since the 
reign of James IL, and had during that period been possessed of the same ample property, the 
largest in the Union. It stood, therefore, at the head of the aristocracy of the country; was 
naturally in alliance with the government; could gain nothing while it risked every thing by a, 
change of dynasty ; and^herefore, according to all the rules and the prejudices and the frailties 
which are commonly found guiding the conduct of men in a crisis of affairs, Charles Carroll might 
have been expected to take pai-t against the revolt, certainly never to join in promoting it. Such, 
however, was not this patriotic person. He was among the foremost to sign the celebrated 
Declaration of Independence. All who did so were believed to have devoted themsdves and 
their families to the furies. As he set his hand to the instrument, the whisper ran round the hall 
of Congress, 'There go some millions of property! ' And there being many of the same name, 
when he heard it said, ' Nobody will know which Carroll it is,' as no one signed moi-e than his 
name; and one at his elbow, addressing him, remarked, 'You'll get clear — there are several of 
the name — they will never know which to take,' he replied, 'Not so!' and instantly added his 
residence, ' of CarroUton.' lie was not only a man of firm mind and steadily-fixed principles ; 
he was also a person of great accomplishments and excellent abilities. Educated in the study 
of the civil law at one of the French colleges, he had resided long enough in Europe to perfect 
his learning in all the ordinary branches of knowledge. On his return to America, he sided with 
the people against the piother country, and was soon known and esteemed as among the ablest 
writers of the Independent party. The confidence reposed in him soon after was so great that 
he was joined with Franklin in the commission of three sent to obtain the concurrence of the 
Canadians in the revolt. He was a member of Congress for the first two trying years, when that 
body was only fourteen in number, and might rather be deemed a cabinet council for action 
than any thing like a deliberative senate. He then belonged, during the rest of the war, to the 
legislature of his native state, Maryland, until 1788, when he was elected one of the United States 
Senate, and continued for three years to act in this capacity. .... As no one had run so large a 
risk by joining the revolt, so no one had adhered to the standard of freedom more firmly, in all 
its fortunes, whether waving in triumph or over disaster and defeat. He never had despaired 
of the commonwealth, nor ever had lent his ear to factious councils ; never had shrunk from 
any sacrifice, nor ever had pressed himself forward to the exclusion of men better fitted to serve 
the common cause. Thus it happened to him that no man was more universally respected and 
beloved ; none had fewer enemies ; and, notwithstanding the ample share in which the gifts of 
fortune were showered upon his house, no one grudged its prosperity. It would, however, be a 




Mim^omilCDIBIAIBlin) (BA^(2)M< 



' s'(/j:r.-y' c^nn 



OXJO^ 



■? O'/T-ty' /-/^f^.' ^•'t/^/y,)-/^/ /y /, ,y,/,/ I 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 209 

ished manners." He was accompanied in 'New York during the 
second session of tlie first Congress by several members of his fa' 
mily, which was in a few years to be so largely represented among 
the most dignified ciixles of the British aristocracy. His daughter, 
Polly Carroll, had been married, in Baltimore, in November, 1786, 
to Mr. Eichard Caton,* an English gentleman who came to this 

very erroneous view of his merits and of the plac'e -which he filled in the eye of his country, 
which should represent him as only respected for his patriotism and his virtues. He had talents 
and acqnirements which enabled him effectually to help the cause he espoused. His knowledge 
was various, and his eloquence was of a high order. It was, like his character, mild and pleas- 
ing : like his deportment, cori'ect and faultless, flowing smoothly, and executing far more than it 
seemed to aim at ; every one was charmed by it, and many were persuaded His taste was pecu- 
liarly chaste, for he was a scholar of extraordinary accomplishments, and few, if any, of the 
speakers in the New World came nearer the models of the more refined oratory practised in the 
parent state. Nature and ease, want of effort, gentleness, united ,with sufficient strength, are 
noted as its enviable characteristics ; and as it thus approached the tone of conversation, so, long 
after he ceased to appear in public, his private society is represented as displaying much of his 
rhetorical powers, and has been compared, not unhappily, by a late writer, to the words of Nes- 
tor, which fell like vernal snows as he spake to the people. In commotions, whether of the sen- 
ate or the multitude, such a speaker, by his calmness and firmness joined, might well hojie to 
have the weight, and to exert the control and mediatory authority of him, pietate gravis et men- 
tis, who regit dictis animos et pectora mulcet." 

* As early as 1809 two of the daughters of Mr. Caton were reigning belles of Baltimore and 
Washington. The memoirs of the eldest would constitute a narrative of singular and romantic 
interest. In the first flowering of womanly beauty she was married to Mr. Robert Patterson, an 
accomplished and wealthy merchant of Baltimore, with whom she travelled in Europe, where 
she attracted the attention of Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, who fol- 
lowed her over half the continent, and by his unguarded devotion incurred not a little scandal. 
Mrs. Patterson returned to Maryland, and her admirer for many months wrote a minute diary 
of what occurred in the gay world abroad, which he transmitted in letters by every packet for 
the United States. When she became a widow she revisited London ; but* the future hero of 
Waterloo was now himself married, and therefore unable to offer her his hand ; he however in- 
troduced his elder brother, the Marquis of Wellesley, " that great statesman whose outset in life 
was marked by a cordial support of American independence," and who was now ViceToy of 
Ireland, and he soon after became her husband. Sir Arthur continued through all his splendid 
career to be one of the warmest of her friends. The Marchioness of Wellesley died at Hampton 
Court, on the seventeenth of December, 1853. One of her sisters was married to Colonel Her- 
vey, an aid-de-camp to Lord Wellington in tbe battle of Waterloo, and, becoming a widow, was 
subsequently united to the Marquis of Caermarthen, afterwards Duke of Leeds. Another sister 
married Baron Stafford, and another Mr. McTavish, for many years British consul at Balti 
more. Mrs. McTavish still survives, and is one of the most distinguished and respected women 
of her native city. 

27 



210 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

country in tlie previous year. Mrs. Caton's amiable and graceful 
manners made her a general favorite, and Washington, in particular, 
was extremely partial to her. 

Of the loyahst families remaining in the city perhaps none was 
more conspicuous in society than tliat of Henry White.* His 
wife was a Van Courtlandt, and appears not to have accompa- 
nied him to England. There were two Misses White who were 
very much admired. They resided in Wall street, near Broadway. 

In this period New York was without any foreign ministers of 
much personal or social distinction. The Count de Moustier had 
taken leave the day before the President started upon his tour 
through the eastern states ; M. Otto and the Sieur de Crevecoeur 
were also in France, with their families ; and Don Diego Gardoqui 
was now in Spain. Mr. Van Berckel, had, however, returned from 

* Sabine says Henry White -vrent to England in 1783, and that his wido-w died in New York, 
at the age of ninety-nine, in 1836. One of hex- sons was Lieutenant General White, of the British 
army ; another was Rear Admiral White, of the Royal Navy. One of her daughters was dowager 
Lady Hayes, and widow of Peter Jay Monroe. " Madam White was a lady of great wealth, and 
her recollections of New York society were curious." In 1181 vre find that one "J. B." imitated 
an epigram of Martial, in an address to Miss M. White, as follows : 

"My lovely maid, I 've often thought 
"Whether thy name be just or not; 
Thy bosom is as cold as snow, 
Which wo for matchless tchite may show ; 
But when thy beauteous ftice Is seen, 
Thou'rt of hruneties the charming queen. 
Eesolve our doubts : let it be known 
Thou rather art inclined to Brown.'''' 

An ancient citizen, a few years ago, in a letter to General Morris, referring to the winter of 1789 
and 1790, says : " You must remember the Misses White, so gay and fashionable, so charming 

in conversation, with such elegant figures I remember going one night with Sir John 

Temple and Henry Remsen to a party at tbeir house. ' I was dressed in a light French blue coat, 
with a high collar, broad lappels, and large gilt buttons, a double-breasted Marseilles vest, 
Nankeen-colored cassimere breeches, with white silk stockings, shining pumps, and full ruffles 
on my breast and at my wrists, together with a ponderous white cravat, with a pudding in it, 
as we then called it ; and I was considered the best-dressed gentleman in the room. I remember 
to have walked a minuet with much grace, with my friend Mrs. Verplanck, who was dressed in 
hoop and petticoats; and, singularly enough, I caught cold that night from drinking hot Port 
wine negus, and riding home in a sedan chair, with one of the glasses broken." 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 2U 

a visit to Europe, and liad been received by tlie President as the re- 
presentative of their High. Mightinesses, the States General of the 
United Netherlands. 

III. 

The President during the* autumn labored with unfaltering assi- 
duity, though frequently warned of the necessity of some relaxation of 
his devotion to affairs ; " he does not look so well as I expected to see 
him," wrote Mr. Harrison, the celebrated advocate, to Mr. Powell, of 
Philadelphia, " and I have heard it said that he is disposed to be un- 
social ; but this, I apprehend, is owing to the excessive anxiety he 
has to discharge every duty in the very best manner, and I am 
persuaded that there is hardly another man connected with the go- 
vernment who performs as much really hard work." Though he 
himself in several letters refers to his health as much improved, it 
is evident that he never entirely recovered from the illness which 
had prostrated him in the earlier part of the summer. 

He sometimes, however, gratified the people by participating in 
their pubhc amusements ; on one occasion it is mentioned that, with 
Mrs. Washington and other members of his family, he was " pleased 
to honor with his comjDany Mr. Bowen's exhibition of wax-work, 
at number seventy-four Water street, and appeared well satisfied 
with the late improvements made by the proprietor." Soon after, 
with Governor Clinton, he attended a review and sham-fight, de- 
vised by Colonel Bauman and others, of which it is said that it 
" afforded the highest entertainment to a large concourse of respec- 
table characters ; " and he now and then went to see a play. 

The theatre had of course met with decided opposition in nearly 
all the states. It is not probable that it will ever cease to be op- 
posed, and it is quite certain that it will always exist, where there 
is even a shadow of real civilization. The corruption of the drama 



212 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

and tlie profligacy of actors are constantly asserted, bnt wlio is so 
T)lind as not to see that tlie withdrawal of the religious and ser- 
vilely formal and nominally wtuons, from an inevitable institution, 
will pervert it, and deprave it, and make it injurious to society, 
while a more kindly guardianship might render it a conservator of 
morality and refinement, as well as a most dehghtful and rational 
means of intellectual recreation ? The parent of innumerable su- 
perstitions, and. of all heresies ever in the churches the most injuri- 
ous to true rehgion, is the belief that self-denial is in itself a ^drtue, 
— that Simeon Stylites, " from scalp to sole one slough and crust of 
sin," deserved canonization for withdrawing from the pleasant path- 
ways of the world to " chatter with the cold," and " drown the 
whoopings of the owl with sound of pious hymns and psalms," upon 
his column. Undoubtedly we are never to consider our ease or 
the satisfaction of our natural desires a moment in comparison with 
the love and obedience we owe to God, or the affectionate justice 
due to our fellow-men, or any exhibition of the attractive beauty 
of hohness ; but the Creator and all his works continually urge 
us to enjoy, all that is enjoyable in innocence, and denounce every 
avoidance or interdiction of reasonable happiness as crime. No 
means of pleasure has ever been devised more dignified and worthy 
of a fine intelhgence, than that of the fit exhibition on the stage 
of the noblest and most universally appreciable productions of 
genius ; and it is a valuable portion of the faultless example* of 
Washington, which displays his approval of such exercise of our 

* The President not only attended the theati-e in John street, but he had " private theatricals" 
in his own house. President Duer says, " I was not only frequently admitted to the presence of 
this most august of men, in propria persona, but once had the honor of appearing before him as 
one of the dramatis personm in the tragedy of Julius Cffisar, enacted by a young 'American Com- 
pany,' (the theatrical corps then performing in New York being called the ' Old American Com- 
pany,') in the garret of the Presidential mansion, where, before the magnates of the land and the 
elite of the city, I performed the part of Brutus to the Cassius of my old schoolfellow, Washing- 
ton Custis, who still survives in the enjoyment of health, wealth, and the fame of his family 
alliance, with any thing but the 'lean and hungry look' attrib'it<*d to hi? fintitioua character." 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 213 

capacities for art. A certain bisliop of Worcester, declaring tliat 
lie liad greater delight in Bacon than in Shakspeare, was compli- 
mented on iiis addiction to pMlosopliy, but confessed that the ba- 
con he referred to was of no abstruse sort, and was purchasable by 
the flitch rather than by the folio ; and there were in the days of 
Washington not a few clergymen boastful of excellent cooks, or 
ever ready to dine with approved epicures, to whose diseased per- 
ceptions that high feeding of the mind provided by the histrions 
was a soul-destroying poison ; nor is it impossible — so inconsistent 
is human nature — that there were bishops too, in the same period, 
whose distinction it was that they were more -skilful than thes best 
instructed laymen in the composition of punches, while they would 
not have wandered with Thalia or Melpomene by Helicon even to 
have secured a monopoly of its inspiring waters. 

The subject of licensing theatres had been before the legisla- 
ture of Pennsylvania in 1 '7 8 5, and Robert Morris and General An- 
thony Wayne had successfully advocated their toleration. A theatre 
was opened in Philadelphia, and another soon after in New York, 
at which, on the evening of the sixth of April, 1786, was performed 
Poyal Tyler's comedy, in five acts, called "The Contrast" — the 
first American play ever brought out by a comjDany of regular 
comedians. Henry,* Hallam, and Wignell, were the popular actors 
of that time, and they appear to have possessed decided and vari- 
ous abilities for their profession. On the seventh of September, 
1T89, the second native comedy, "The Father, or American Shan- 

* Henry vas the only actor in America who kept a carriage. It was in tlie form of a coach, 
but very small — large enough only to carry himself and his wife to the theatre. It was drawn 
by one horse, and driven by a black boy. Aware of the jealousy toward players, and that it 
would be said " He keeps a coach," he had caused to be painted on the doors, as coats of arms 
are painted, two crutches, in heraldic fashion, with the legend, " This or these." He suffered 
much from gout, and it is remembered that he said, " I put this marked motto and device on my 
carriage to prevent any impertinent observations on an actor keeping his coach : the wits would 
have taken care to forget that the actor could not walk." 



214 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

dyism,-' was produced at tlie John street house with considerable 
success. It was written by "William Dunlap, who for two or three 
years had painted portraits, for very moderate prices, at number 
thirteen Queen street. A contemjDorary critic observes that " sen- 
timent, wit, and comic humor, are ha23j)ily blended in this ingenious 
. performance, nor is that due proportion of the pathetic, which inter- 
ests the finest feehngs of the human heart, omitted. The happy 
allusions to characters and events in which every friend of our 
country feels interested, and those traits of benevolence which are 
brought to view under the most favorable circumstances, conspired 
to engage, amuse, delight, and instruct, through five acts of alter- 
nate anticipations and agreeable surprises." The reception of this 
piece encouraged Dunlap, to further efforts, and on the twenty- 
fourth of November his " Darby's Return " was acted, before a 
very crowded house, to its " fullest satisfaction." When Washing- 
ton came in, on this, as on other occasions, the audience rose and 
received him with the warmest acclamations. 

IV. 

The winter of 1789-90 was warmer than any which the oldest 
inhabitants could remember. In the last week of December and 
the fii'st of January gardeners and farmers on the island of Man- 
hattan were ploughing, and women appeared in the streets of the 
city in theii' summer dresses. The pleasant custom of making New 
Year's calls had Ions: obtained in most of the countries of conti- 
nental Europe, and it was brought to New York by both the Dutch 
and the Huguenots, who had preserved it as one of then* peculiar 
institutions, which never could be naturalized in towns of a more 
purely English origin and population. On Friday, the first of Jan- 
uary, 1Y90, we are informed by the late venerable Mr. John Pin- 
\^ tard, who was then a young man of fashion, and a close observer, 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 215 

the President was waited upon by the principal gentlemen of the \ 
metropolis. The day was uncommonly mild and agreeable, even 
for that year of perpetual verdure, and the great festival of friend- 
ship was never kept more universally or with a livelier gratification. 
The visitors of the President, after an interchange of the usual 
salutations of the day, withdrew, delighted at his gracious manner. 
It is not known, though Mr. Pintard assures us that a majority of 
them were j)ersonally unacquainted with him, that there were any 
to complain of such a stately bearing as about this time alarmed a 
sagacious colonel from Virginia for the safety of the repubhc. This 
colonel had travelled, and after attending one of the receptions of 
the President, he declared, at the table of Governor Beverly Ran- 
dolph, in Richmond, that " his bows were more distant and stiff" 
than any he had seen at St. James's ! A correspondent informed 
Washington of the fearful apprehensions thus awakened, and he 
replied, " That I have not been able to make bows to the taste of 

poor Colonel B , who, by the way, I believe never saw but one 

of them, is to be regretted ; especially as, upon those occasions, 
they were indiscriminately bestowed, and the best I was master of. 
Would it not have been better to throw the veil of charity over 
them, ascribing their stiffness to the effects of age, or to the unskU- 
fulness of my teacher, rather than to pride and dignity of ofiace ? " 
Mrs. Washington held her levee, as on other Friday evenings, 
but on no previous occasion had one been graced with so much 
respectabihty and elegance. The aii- was almost as gentle as it 
should be in May, and the full moon shone so brightly that the 
streets to a late hour were filled with a delicious twihght. It was 
not the custom for visitors of the President to sit, but it appears 
from Mr. Pintard's diary that, on this night at least, there were 
chairs in the rooms where Mi-s. Washington saw her guests, for 
" after they were seated," tea and coffee, and plum and plain cake, 



216 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

were dispensed by the attending servants. She remarked, while 
speaking of tlie day's occurrences, tliat none of tkem had so pleased 
the General (by which title she always designated her husband) as 
the friendly greetings of the gentlemen who called upon him at noon. 
To an inquiry, by the President, whether such observances were 
casual or customary, it was answered, that New Year's visiting had 
always been maintained in the city. He paused a moment, and 
then observed, " The highly favored situation of New York will, 
in the process of years, attract numerous emigi*ants, who will gra- 
dually change its ancient customs and manners ; but, whatever 
changes take place, never forget the cordial and cheerful observance 
of New Year's day." Mrs. Washington had stood by his side as 
the visitors arrived and were presented, and when the clock in the 
hall was heard striking nine, she advanced and with a complacent 
smile said, " The General always retu'es at nine, and I usually pre- 
cede him ; " upon which all arose, made their parting salutations, 
and withdrew. 

V. 

The members came together very slowly for the second session 
of Congress, which was to have been opened on the fom'th of Jan- 
uary, but a quorum not being then present, such senators and repre- 
sentatives as were in town met every day and adjourned, until the 
eighth, when, a sufficient number having arrived for the transaction 
of business, the President came to Federal Hall, in his chariot, with 
six horses, and, proceeding to the Senate chamber, was conducted 
by the Vice President to his chair, and delivered his speech, of 
R^hich piinted copies were immediately afterward laid upon the 
several desks in both Houses. It was the practice of Washington 
to communicate with Congress only by wiitten messages, except at 
the commencement of each session, when he met in person both 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 217 

brandies in joint assembly. He was dressed on this occasion in a 
complete suit- of fine cloth, manufactm-ed in Hartford, "of that 
beautiful changeable hue called crow color, which is remarked in 
shades not quite black." After congratulating Congress on the 
auspicious appearance of public affaii^s, the recent acceptance of the 
Constitution by the state of North Carolina, and the general and 
increasing goodwill manifested toward the government, he proceed- 
ed to recommend such measures as he deemed most essential for 
the public interests, and dwelt with particular emphasis upon the 
consideration that nothing was more deserving of the patronage of 
a free people than literature and institutions of learning. 

A large number of public dinners are mentioned as having been 
given in New York in the early part of the year 1790, and many 
of the discussions of politics and affairs which occurred out of Con- 
j ^ress were at the tables of the leading public characters. The 
President continued his Weclnesday dinner parties to members of 
Congress, ambassadors, and other eminent persons, and frequently 
invited the secretaries to debate cabinet questions " over a bottle 
of wine." On the sixth of February, the anniversary of the alli- 
ance between France and the United States, the cliargb d''aff aires 
of His Most Christian Majesty, entertained at his house the Vice 
President, the heads of dei3artments, the Senate, the Sj^eaker of the 
House of Eepresentatives, .Chief Justice Jay, Governor Clinton, 
Chancellor Liviugston, and the diplomatic body and other foreigners 
of distinction. 

The birthday of the President was this year celebrated with 
enthusiasm in Boston, Salem, Charleston, Kichmond, Alexandria, 
Philadelphia, Trenton, and most of the large towns throughout the 
United States. In New York, the Tammany Society or Columbian 
Order, then recently instituted " on the true principles of patriot- 
sm, and haviug for its motives charity and brotherly love," held a 

28 



218 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

meeting at tlieir wigwam, and resolved tliat for ever after it would 
"commemorate the birthday of the illustrious George Washing- 
ton." 

VI. 

Me. Jefeeesoi^, after a very pleasant j)assage, arrived at Norfolk 
from France on the twenty-thii'd of November, and proceeded soon 
after to Monticello. His wife had been dead many years, but his 
two daughters, whom he had educated very carefully in theu' native 
country and in Europe, were now grown to womanhood, and the 
eldest '" of them had been awaiting his return to be married to Mr. 

* Martha Jeftersou was born on tlie twenty-seventh of September, 1'7'72, and was therefore 
now a little more than seventeen years of age. John Randolph said she was " the sweetest young 
creature in Virginia ;" Mrs. Adams, to whose care she had been intrusted some time in Paris, re- 
fers to her with the most affectionate expressions ; and Mrs. Smith, the daughter of Mrs. Adams, 
says, " delicacy and sensibility are read in her every feature, and her manners are in unison with 
all that is amiable and lovely." While Miss Jefferson, in 1783, was at school in Philadelphia, 
boarding with Mrs. Trist, (grandmother of Mr. Nicholas P. Trist, who is now the husband of the 
grand-daughter of Mr. Jefferson,) her father addressed to her the following letter, which has never 
hitherto been published, and is very interesting as an illustration of his domestic character and 
his views of the education of women: "Annapolis, November 28, 1783. My dear Patsy: After 
four days' journey, I arrived here without any accident, and in as good health as when I left 
Philadelphia. The conviction that you would be more improved in the situation where I have 
placed you than if still with me, has solaced me on my parting with you, which my love for you 
has rendered a difficult thing. The acquirements which I hojie you will make under the tutors 
I have provided for you, will render you more worthy of my love ; and if they cannot increase 
it, they will prevent its diminution. Consider the good lady who has taken you under her roof, 
who has undertaken to see that you perform all your exercises, and to admonish you in all those 
wanderings from what is right, or what is clever, to which your inexperience would expose you,- — 
consider her, I say, as your mother, as the only person to whom, since the loss with which Heaven 
has been pleased to afiiict you, you can now look up ; and that her displeasure or disapjirobation, 
on any occasion, will be an immense misfortune, which, should you be so unhappy as to incur by 
any unguarded act, think no concession too much to regain her good will. With respect to the 
distribution of your time, the following is what I should approve : From 8 to 10, practise music. 
From 10 to 1, dance one day and draw another. ~ From 1 to 2, draw on the day you dance and 
write a letter next day. From 3 to 4, read French. From 4 to 5, exercise yourself in music. 
From 5 till bed-time read English, write, tfec. Communicate this plan to Mrs. Hopkinson ; and, 
if she approves of it, pursue it. As long as Mrs. Trist remains in Philadelphia, cultivate her 
affections. She has been a valuable friend to you, and her good sense and good heart make her 
valued by all who know her, and by nobody on earth more than me. I expect you will write to 
me by every post. Inform me what books you read, what tunes you learn, and inclose me your 
best copy of every lesson in drawing. Write also one letter every week, either to your Aunt 




MIM^ . IC'MODMAS ffi . liiUU^lQ) (2t)MFlK . 



I m^RTVjI .rKi'y^MRn.N. I 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETl. 219 

Thomas Mann Kandolpli, of Tuckalioe, wliom he describes as " a 
young gentleman of genius, science, and honorable mind, who af 
terward filled a dignified station in the general government, and 
the. most dignified in his own state." On the first of March, he 
left home for the seat of government, to asume his duties as Secre- 
tary of State. In Philadelphia, he wiites to Madame la Comtesse 
d'Houdetot, " I found our friend Dr. Franklin in his bed — cheerful, 
and free from pain, but still," in his bed. He took a lively interest 
in the details I gave him of your revolution. I observed his face 
often flushed in the course of it. He is much emaciated." It was in 
this interview that Franklin confided to him the manuscrij)t, now 
lost, of one of the most important portions of his personal memoii's. 
The fine weather of December and January had been succeeded 
in the later winter by rains and blustery snows, and Mr. Jefferson 
had an extremely tedious and disagreeable passage to New York, 
which he described the week after its conclusion in a letter to his 
son-in-law. " I arrived here," he says, " on the twenty-first instant, 
after as laborious a journey, of a fortnight, from Richmond, as I 
ever -went through — resting only one day at Alexandria, and an- 
other at Baltimore. I found my carriage and horses at Alexandria ; 
but a snow of eighteen inches deep falling the same night, I saw 
the impossibility of getting on in my own carnage : so left it there, 
to be sent to me by water, and had my horses led on to this place, 

Eppes, your Aunt Skipmth, youi- Aunt Carr, or the little lady from -whom I now enclose a letter, 
and al-ways put the letter you so write under cover to me. Take care that you never spell a 
■woi'd "wrong. Always, before you -write a "word, consider ho"w it is spelt, and, if you do not re- 
member it, turn to a dictionary. It produces great praise to a lady to spell "well. I have placed 
my happiness on seeing you good and accomplished ; and no distress "which this "world can now 
•bring on me would equal that of your disappointing my hopes. If you love me then, strive to 
be good under every situation, and to all living creatures, and to acquire those accomplishments 
which I have put in your power, and which will go far towards ensuring you the warmest love 
of your affectionate father. Th. Jefferson. 

" P. S. Keep my letters and read them at times, that you may always have present in your 
nind those things which will endear you to me." 



220 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

taking my passage in the stage, tliougli relieving myself a little 
sometimes by mounting my liorse. Tlie roads, tlirougli the whole 
way, were so bad that we could never go more than three miles an 
hour, sometimes not more than two, and in the night but one. My 
first object was to look out a house, in the Broadway, if possible, 
as being in the centre of my business. Finding none there vacant, 
for the present, I have taken a small one in Maiden lane, which may 
give me time to look about me. Much business had been put by 
for my arrival, so that I found myself all at once involved under 
an accumulation of it. "When this shall be got through I will be 
able to judge whether the ordinary business of my department will 
leave me any leisure. I fear there will be little." 

Mr. Jefferson was not well pleased with the tone of political 
(society ; in his famous " Anas " he says, " I found a state of things 
which of all I had ever contemplated I then least expected. I had 
left France in the first year of her revolution, in the fervor of natu- 
ral rights and zeal for reformation. My conscientious devotion to 
these rights could not be heightened, but it had been roused and 
excited by daily exercise. The President received me cordially, 
and my colleagues and the circle of principal citizens, apparently 
with welcome. The courtesies of dinner parties, given me as a 
stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their 
familiar society. But I cannot describe the wonder with which 
their table conversations filled me. Pohtics were their chief to^^ic, 
and a preference of kingly over republican government was evi- 
dently the favorite sentiment. An apostate I could not be, nor yet 
a hypocrite, and I found myself, for the most part, the only advo- 
cate on the republican side of the question, unless among the guests* 
there chanced to be some member of that party from the legisla- 
tive houses." He says much more in the same vein, and its value 
may be inferred from what has been shown resj^ectiug his account 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 221 

of the inauguration ball. There is not the slightest evidence except 
Mr. Jefferson's assertions that there was a single person in the city 
at that period, except foreign residents, who were any less partial 
to republicanism than himself ; certainly General Washington, Gen- 
eral Knox, Colonel Hamilton, Mr. Adams, and Mr. Jay, with whom 
his official relations brought him into the most frequent intercourse, 
never, on any occasion whatever, breathed or wrote a syllable to 
authorize an imputation against them or any of them of a predilec- 
tion for kingly or aristocratical institutions. 

VII. 

Ok the seventeenth of April Benjamin Franklin died in Phila- 
delphia, and though the event had been expected for many months, 
it produced a profound sensation throughout the country.* This 

* A contemporary journal thus announces the death of the philosopher and the circumstances 
of his funeral : " On the seventeenth of April departed this life, at Philadelphia, the venerable 
and celebrated philosopher and patriot, Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., aged eighty-five years. His 
final sickness lasted fifteen days. He was interred with every mark of esteem and veneration. 
The following was the order of procession : 

AU the Clergy of the City,. before the Corpse. 

The Corpse, carried by Citizens. « 

The Pall, supported by the President of the State, the Chief Justice, the President of 

the Bank, Samuel Powell, AVilliam Bingham, and David Eitteuhouse, Esqs. 

Mourners, consisting of the family of the deceased, with a number of particular friends. 

The Secretary and Members of the Supreme Executive Council. 

The Speaker and members of the General Assembly. 

Judge of the Supreme Court, and other Officers of the Government. 

The Gentlemen of the Bai*. 

The Mayor and Corporation of the City of Philadelphia. 

The Printers of the City, with their Journeymen and Apprentices. 

The Philosophical Society. 

The College of Physicians. 

The Cincinnati. 

The College of Philadelphia, and sundry other Societies. 

" The concourse of spectators was greater than ever was known on a like occasion. It is 
computed that not less than twenty thousand persona attended the funeraL The order and 
silence which prevailed during the procession deeply evinced the heartfelt sense entertained by 
all classes of citizens of the unparalleled virtues, talents, and services of the deceased." 



222 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

illustrious man was admii'ed and revered next to Washington, and 
only for tlie death of Washington could there have been a more 
pervading sorrow. A few days after the intelligence reached New 
York a resolution was moved by Mr. Madison, and unanimously 
adopted, that "being informed of the decease of Benjamin Frank- 
lin, (I citizen whose native genius was not more an ornament to 
human nature than his various exertions of it have been precious 
xo science, to freedom, and to his country as a mark of venera- 
tion due to his memory, the members wear the customary badge 
of mourning for one month." The Executive Council of Pennsyl- 
vania passed a similar resolution ; the American Philosophical So- 
ciety appointed one of their number, the Reverend Br. William 
Smith, to pronounce a discourse commemorative of his character ; 
an homage of the same kind was offered in a Latin oration by the 
Reverend Dr. Stiles, at Yale College ; and the societies of the Cin- 
cinnati in the several states, the Tammany Society in New York, 
and other public bodies, also wore insignia of mourning. 

In France the honors paid to his memory were not less remark- 
able. When the news reached Paris, Mirabeau ascended the tri- 
bune and before a silent and sympathetic audience said, " Frank- 
lin is dead ! Returned into the bosom of the divinity is that gen- 
ius which freed America, and rayed forth upon Em-ope torrents of 
liorht. The sao-e whom the two worlds alike claim — the man for 
whom the history of science and the history of emj^ires are disput- 
ing — held, beyond doubt, an elevated rank in the human species. 
For long enough have political cabiJiets noticed the deaths of those 
who were only great in their funeral orations; for long enough 
has court-eticLuette .proclaimed hypocritical mourning. Nations 
should only wear mourning for their benefactors. The representa- 
tives of nations ought only to recommend to theu' homage the 
heroes of humanity. The Congress has ordained, in the thu'teen 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 223 

states of the confederation, a mourning of two months for the de- 
cease of FranldiQ ; and America is acquitting, at this very moment, 
that tribute of veneration for one of the fathers of her constitu- 
tion. Would it not be worthy of us, gentlemen, to join in that re- 
ligious act; to participate in that homage, rendered, before the 
face of the universe, both to the rights of man and to the philoso- 
pher who has the most contributed to extend their acknowledg- 
ment over all the world ? Antiquity would have raised altars to 
that vast and powerful genius, who, for the advantage of mortals, 
embracing in his aspirations heaven and the earth, knew how to tame 
tyrants and their thunderbolts. France, enhghtened and free, owes 
at the least an expression of remembrance and regret for one of 
the greatest men who have ever aided philosophy and hberty. 
I propose that it be decreed that the National Assembly wear 
mourning during three days for Benjamin Franklin." Lafayette 
and Rochefoucauld seconded the motion ; it was adopted by accla- 
mation ; and the Assembly afterwards decreed that they would go 
into mourning for three days. The Abbe Sieyes, as President of 
the Assembly, addressed a letter to the President of the United 
States on the loss which the human race had sustained in the death 
of this apostle of freedom and philosophy : the Abbe Fauchet pro- 
nounced an eulogy upon his hfe and genius in the presence of the 
Commune of Paris ; Condorcet celebrated his virtues in an oration 
before the Academy of Sciences ; and every where throughout the 
kingdom there were demonstrations of reverence for his character 
and regret for his death. 

' VIII. 

The most famous and troublesome leaders of the Indians, during 
"Washington's administration, were Brant, or Thayendanegea, chief 
of the six nations, and Alexander McGillivray, a compound of 



224 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Creek and Scotch, who became the head man of a powerful confed- 
eracy on the frontiers of Georgia. They were both persons of 
considerable education, and familiar with the habits and warlike 
customs of civilized society. McGillivray, after studying Latin at 
Charleston, had been placed in a counting-house, but though shrewd 
and not without a spmt of enterprise he had evinced a greater 
fondness for books than for mercantile affairs. His father, a suc- 
cessful Indian trader, had acquired large possessions in Georgia, 
but for his opposition to the revolution they had been confiscated 
and he himself banished, leaving the young Indian with little pro- 
perty and no attachment to the Anglo-Americans. Taking refuge 
with the Creeks, his abilities and knowledge soon enabled him to win 
influence and distinction, and for several years he carried on a for- 
midable war against the Georgians, in which he was supported by 
the Spaniards of Florida. In the summer of 1789 Washington 
had apjDointed General Lincoln, Colonel Humphreys, and David 
Griffin, commissioners to treat for a settlement of the difficulties 
with the Creek confederacy, but they were unsuccessful, and Colo- 
nel Marinus Willett had been sent on a second mission, which re- 
sulted in his persuading McGillivray, with twenty-eight principal 
chiefs and warriors of his nation, to proceed to the seat of govern- 
ment, where negotiations might be carried on with less liability to 
interruption or influence from local interests. The party was cor- 
dially and ceremoniously received in Philadelphia, and in New 
York, where they arrived on the twenty-fii'st of July, and remained 
several weeks, attracting even more attention than was given to 
Black Hawk nearly half a century afterward. Arrayed in their 
Indian dresses, the Tammany Society escorted them into the city, 
and on the second of August entertained them at a pubhc dinner, 
at which the Tammany sachems sung songs, the Creek sachems 
danced, and toasts were drank, and the orators of both sides made 



EIGHT Y- NINE AND NINETY. 225 

speeches. General Knox, Governor Clinton, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Jay, 
and many other public characters were among the guests. The In- 
dians were present also at a grand review of uniformed militia, by 
the President and the Secretary of War, on the grounds of Colonel 
Kutgers. A treaty having been concluded, by the Secretary of 
War, it was ratified in Federal Hall on the thii'teenth of August, 
in the presence of a large assembly, including the principal officers 
of the administration, members of Congress, and other distinguished 
citizens. The President, with his suite, met the Creek chiefs at 
twelve o'clock, and, the treaty having been read and interpreted, 
addressed them in a speech in which its several provisions were ex- 
plained, and received from each an audible and emphatic assent to 
them. He then signed the treaty, and delivered a string of wam- 
pum, as a memorial of amity, and a paper of tobacco, to smoke in 
commemoration of it, to McGiOivray, who made a short acknow- 
ledgment, after which there was a general shaking of hands, and 
in conclusion the chiefs and warriors sung a song of peace. 

Colonel Trumbull, who had returned from Europe to obtain sub- 
scribers for the engravings from his celebrated series of pictures 
illustrative of the revolution, had just completed for the corporation 
the large full length portrait of the President which now graces 
the City Hall. Washington was curious to see the effect it would 
produce on the minds of the savages, and therefore directed Trum- 
bull to place it in an advantageous hght, facing the entrance of the 
painting room, and, having entertained several of the principal 
chiefs at dinner, he invited them to walk with him, and led them 
suddenly into the presence of his counterfeit. As the door was 
opened they were startled at seeing another " Great Father," stand- 
ing within, and for a time were mute with astonishment. At length 
one of the chiefs advanced toward the pictm-e, slowly reached out 

his hand and touched it, and was still more astounded to feel but 
29 



226 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

a cold flat surface instead of tlie warm round figure it liad seemed 
He exclaimed " Ugli ! " and each of tlie party with a grave surprise 
not unmixed with fear carefully repeated his examination. Trumbull 
had been anxious to obtain portraits of some of these chiefs, whom 
he describes as possessed of a dignity of manner, form, countenance, 
and expression, worthy of Roman senators ; but after this he found 
it impossible ; they were suspicious that there was magic in an art 
which could impart to a piece of canvas the appearance of a great 
soldier, dressed for battle, and standing beside his war-horse. 

Since the inauguration of the new government the business of 
New York had largely increased, and the erection of many hand- 
some public and private edifices had added much to the attractive 
appearance of the city. Trinity Church, comj^leted in 1737, had 
been destroyed in the great fire of September, 1776, and a new 
one — that which a few years ago gave place to the present beau- 
tiful structure — was now finished, and on the last Thursday in 
March was consecrated by Bishop Provoost, in the presence of 
Washington, the members of the cabinet and other eminent pub- 
he men, the resident clergy of different denominations, and an un- 
usually large assemblage of fashion and beauty. The vestry ap- 
propriated a richly-ornamented pew, with a canopy over it, to the 
President of the United States, and other pews were assigned to 
the Governor of the state and the members of Congress. A curi- 
ous event occurred at this church a short time before the adjourn- ' 
ment of Congress, in August. The Reverend Benjamin Blagrove, 
of St. Peter's Parish, New Kent, Virginia, was permitted to give a 
public concert there. He sung two long pieces of sacred music, ac- 
companying himself on the organ, and his great reputation as a 
vocalist secured a full house. 

An extraordinary absurdity was committed by the mayor and 
corporation, in the spring of 1790, which materially lessened the 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 227 

beauty of the city, and gave rise to many indignant displays of 
feeling on tlie part of newspaper poets and public meetings ; New 
York was liberally ornamented with trees, and great pains bad 
been taken to plant them in a rick variety along tke principal 
streets ; but tke autkorities, doubtless for some supposed necessity 
connected witk tke pubkc kealtk — as Dr. Samuel Latkam Mitckell, 
about tkis time described as " a buckisk young oracle, kalf dandy 
and kalf pkilosopker," was accused at a dinner party at Fraunces's 
tavern of kaving too muck to do witk tke business — ordered tkem 
all to be cut down before tke first of June. 

IX. 

DuErN-G kis New England tour, in 1*7 8 9, tke President did not 
pass tkrougk Rkode Island, as tkat state kad not yet accepted tke 
Constitution ; but on Saturday, tke fourteentk of August, ke sailed 
for Newport, accompanied by Mr. Jefferson, Governor Clinton, 
Judge Blair, Mr. Foster, Mr. Smitk, of Soutk Carolina, Mr. Gilman, 
of New Hampskii^e, Colonel Humpkreys, Major Jackson, and Mr. 
Nelson. He arrived at Newport tke following Tuesday morning, 
and was welcomed by a salute of tkirteen guns wken tke packet 
passed Fort Waskington, tkirteen more from tke same quarter on 
kis landing, and a like number from tke skipping in tke karbor. 
Tke citizens received tkeir distinguisked guest witk every suitable 
mark of respect, and in procession escorted kim to kis lodgings. 
At four o'clock a committee of tke town autkorities waited on kim 
to tke State House, wkere ke partook of an elegant dinner, after 
wkick tke federal complement of toasts was given, to tke first 
of wkick ke responded, " Tke state we are in, and prosperity to 
it!" On Wednesday morning ke was addressed by tke mayor, 
tke clergy, and tke society of Free Masons, and kaving visited tke 
several parts of tke town, ke sailed for Providence, wkere kis re- 



228 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

cej)tion was remarkably enthusiastic, and was followed by every 
conceivable demonstration of respectful attachment. He returned 
on tbe twenty-fii'st, having been absent ten days, with his health 
improved by the voyage. 

X. 

The second session of the first Congress — the last ever held in 
New York — was closed on the twelfth of August, and on the 
thirtieth the President set out for Virginia, where he proposed to 
pass the remainder of the season. The excursion to Rhode Island 
had caused a partial and temporary restoration of his strength, but 
he was still suffering from disease, brought on by too constant ap- 
plication to business, and he contemplated with delight the repose 
and recreation he should find at Mount Vernon. " Within the last 
twelve months," he wrote, "I have undergone more and severer 
sickness than thirty preceding years afflicted me with. I have 
abundant reason, however, to be thankful, that I am so well recov- 
ered ; though I still feel the remains of the violent affection of my 
lungs : the cough, pain in my breast, and shortness of breathing, 
not having entirely left me." The day before his departm-e he 
entertained the mayor and corporation, and Governor and Mrs. 
Clinton, at his last pubhc dinner. He recalled the many interest- 
ing scenes with which he had been connected in the city and its 
vicinity, and spoke with much emotion of the kindness which he 
had received from the people during all his intercourse with them, 
especially since the establishment of the federal government. It 
was his intention to avoid all ceremony in leaving, but the execu- 
tive officers of the United States, the governor and principal offi- 
cers of the state, the mayor and corporation, the clergy, the mem- 
bers of the society of the Cincinnati, and many other respectable 
persons, attended and escorted him to the place where he was te 



EIGHTY-NINE AND NINETY. 229 

embark, on tlie beautiful barge wliicli had been presented to Mm 
on Ms arrival in the previous year. He left his residence at half 
after ten o'clock, with Mrs. Washington and the other members of 
his family, and the moment they stepped from the wharf was an- 
nounced by thii'teen guns from the battery. The solemnity of this 
parting scene* was singularly different from the tumultuous joy with 
which the President had been received, a year and a half before. 
He again expressed the sense he entertained of the disposition of 
the citizens to render his residence among them agreeable; said 
that, although circumstances had made his removal necessary, he 
should never forget their generous attentions ; and wished them, 
their state, and city, every prosperity. Governor Clinton, Chief 
Justice Jay, General Knox, Colonel Hamilton, and the mayor, ac- 
companied him as far as Paulus Hook. 

Having landed in New Jersey, the President had no further use 
for his barge, and he dii'ected that it should be returned, with the 
following letter, written just before starting, to Captain Thomas 

* " As the General left the house, he took my hand, and I thought I never sa-w him look so 
sad. We reached the appointed place of departure , I see the spot plainly before me : the crowd 
■was immense .... the eyes of the multitude were steadily bent upon him, but not a "whisper 
among the whole was audible. When arrived at the spot, he paused, and for a moment surveyed 
the scene. I saw that his heart was too full for utterance, and his eyes seemed bursting with 

suppressed tears; still he calmly looked on all around At length, when the last officer had 

been embraced, the General seemed for a moment to gain a self possession, and with a firm step 
turned towards the boat in waiting ; he stepped on board, and almost sunk upon the seat ; this 
was but for an instant, for as the boat shoved off, he stood upright, and quickly raising his hat 
with that grace and dignity which seemed peculiarly to belong to him, he surveyed once morfc 
his officers, and his friends, and after pausing a moment, he murmured with an emphasis I can 
nfever forget, so full of mingled sorrow and affliction, so deep and earnest, so soulfelt in its ac- 
cents, the single word ' Farewell ! ' and waving his hat, the fresh gushing tears prevented his 
further action or utterance. At that moment a shoiit, such as I have never heard, before or 
since — one simultaneous shout — burst from the shore, and so loud, and deep, and full, was it, 
that it drowned the echo of the heavy guns, the large twenty-eight pounders, which at the 
same moment were fired from a short distance above. A dull heavy noise was all I could 
distinguish ; and as the acclaim of the multitude was wafted over the parting waves, and the 
cannon's smoke rose upwards, the General once more waved his hand, and the boat shot rapidly 
from the shore. This was the last time he ever saw New York." — George Washington Parke 
Custis^s " Recollections.^' 



230 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

Randall, chairman of the committee of gentlemen through whom 
he had received it. 

^'■Sir: On the second of May, 1*789, 1 wrote you, requesting that 
my acknowledgments might be offered to the gentlemen who had 
presented an elegant barge to me, on my arrival in this city. As I 
am, at this moment, about commencing my journey to Virginia, 
and consequently shall have no farther occasion for the use of the 
barge, I must now desire that you will return it, in my name, and 
with my best thanks, to the original proprietors : at the same time 
I shall be much obliged if you will have the goodness to add, on 
my part, that in accepting theii* beautiful present, I considered it 
as a pledge of that real urbanity which, I am happy in declaring, 
I have experienced on every occasion during my residence among 
them ; that I ardently wish every species of prosperity may be the 
constant portion of the respectable citizens of New York ; and that 
I shall always retam a grateful remembrance of the polite attention 
of the citizens in general, and of those in particular to whom the 
contents of this note are addressed. I am, with sentiments of re- 
gard and esteem, sir, your most obedient and very humble servant, 

"G. Washestgtott " 



*l 




>:;friSiS , J9T11WJ 



REMOTAL OF THE GOVERNMENT. 



Theee was no subject before the first Congress wMcli produced 
a deeper feeling or more warm debate tban that of tlie permanent 
establisliment of the seat of government. On the twenty-first of 
October, 1783, the old Congress, insulted at Philadelphia by a band 
of mutineers whom the state authorities were imable to put down, 
adjourned to Princeton, where it occuj^ied the halls of the college, 
and finally to New York, where it assembled in the beginning of 
1T85. The question continued in debate, not only in Congress, but 
in the public journals and private correspondence of all parts of 
the country, and was brought before the convention for forming 
the Constitution, at Philadelphia, but by that body referred to the 
federal legislature. It was justly considered that extraordinary 
advantages would accrue to any city which might become the capi- 
tal of the nation, and it is not surprising, therefore, that a sectional 
controversy arose which for a time threatened the most disastrous 
consequences. The eastern states would have been satisfied with 
the retention of the pubhc business in New York, but Pennsylvania 
wished it to be conducted on the banks of the Delaware, and Mary- 
land and Virginia, supported very generally by the more southern 
states, were not less anxious that the legislative centre of the 
republic should be on the Potomac. 



232 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT. 

Efforts were made to postpone the consideration of tlic subject 
anotlier year, but against tliis all the soutbern parties protested, 
as New York in the mean time would be likely to strengthen her 
influence, and it was contended that the danger of selecting any 
large city was already apparent in the feeling manifested in favor 
of the 23resent metropolis by persons whose constituents were unani- 
mously opposed to it. Dr. Eush, in a letter to General Muhlen- 
berg, after the passage of a bill in the House of Eepresentatives 
for the establishment of the seat of government on the banks of 
the Susquehanna, wrote, "I rejoice in the prospect of Congress 
leaving New York ; it is a sink of political vice ; " and again, " Do 
as you please, but tear Congress away from New York in any way ; 
do not rise without effecting this business." Other persons, whosQ 
means of judging were much better than those of Dr. Eush, be- 
heved with Wolcott, that " honesty was in fashion " here, and Mr. 
Page, a member from Virginia, sagacious, moral, and without local 
interests except in liis own state, declared that New York was supe- 
rior to any place he knew " for the orderly and decent behavior 
of its inhabitants." As to Philadel23hia, the South Carolinians 
found an objection in her Quakers, who, they said, " were eternally 
dogging southern members with their schemes of emancijDation." 

There was another very exciting proposition at the same time be- 
fore Congress, respecting which the supporting interests were in a 
different direction ; the Carolinas, Ceorgia, and Vii^ginia, were nearly 
as much opposed to the assumption of the state debts, as New Eng- 
land and New York were to establishing the seat of government 
in such a position that nine of the thirteen states should be north 
of it; and Mr. Hamilton, setting an example of compromises for 
the germinating statesman of Kentucky, then a pu23il of the vene- 
rable Wythe, proposed an arrangement which resulted in the selec- 
tion for federal purposes of Conogocheague, on the Potomac, now 



REMOVAL OF THE GOVERNMENT. 233 

known as tlie District of Columbia. Hamilton and Kobert Morris, 
botb. strong advocates for tbe financial measure, agreed tbat if some 
of tbe southern members were gratified as to tbe location of tbe 
national capital, tbey might be willing to yield tbe other point, 
and two or three votes would be sufficient to change the majority 
in the House of Kepresentatives. Mr. Jefferson had not been long 
in the city ; he was ignorant of the secrets of its diplomacy ; and 
complains that he was most innocently made to " hold the can- 
dle " to this intrigue, " being duped into it," as he says, " by the 
Secretary of the Treasury, and made a tool of for forwarding his 
schemes, not then sufficiently understood." Congress had met and 
adjourned, from day to day, without doing any thing. The mem- 
bers were too much out of humor to do business together. As 
Jefferson was on his way to the President's, one morning, he met in 
the street Hamilton, who walked him backwards and forwards in 
Broadway for half an horn', describing the temper of the legisla- 
ture, the disgust of the creditor states, as they were called, and the 
danger of disunion, ending with an appeal for his aid and coopera- 
tion, as a member of the cabinet, in calming an excitement and set- 
tling a question which threatened the very existence of the govern- 
ment. Jefferson proposed that Hamilton should dine with him the 
next evening, and promised to invite another friend or two, think- 
ing it " impossible that reasonable men, consulting together coolly, 
could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a compro- 
mise which was to save the Union." The meeting and the discus- 
sion took place, and it was finally decided that two of the Vii'gniia 
members who had opposed that measure should support the assump- 
tion bill, and that, to allay any excitement which might thus be 
produced, Hamilton and Morris should bring sufficient influence 
from the north to insure the permanent establishment of the gov- 
ernment on the Potomac, after its continuance in Philadelphia for 
30 



234 TIiE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

ten years, during whicli period public buildings miglit be erected, 
and sucli other preparation made as sliould be necessary for tlie 
proper accommodation of persons engaged witli public affairs. 
Morris liad liitlierto strongly advocated tbe claims of Philadelphia 
to be the j^ermanent metroj)olis, and he now shrewdly concluded, 
President Duer observes, that if the public offices were once opened 
in "that city they would continue there, as, but for the silent influ- 
ence of the name of Washington, whose wishes on the subject were 
known, would have been the case. Dr. Green mentions that some 
person who was in company with the President during the discus- 
sion, remarked, " I know very well where the federal city ought to 
be." "Where, then, would you put it?" inquired Washington. 
The fellow mentioned a place, and was asked, " Why are you sure 
it should be there ? " " For the most satisfactory of all reasons," 
he answered ; " because nearly the whole of my property lies there 
and in the neighborhood." The insolent meaning was, of course, 
that Washington favored the location of the capital in its present 
site because it was near his estate. The people of New York were 
disappointed and vexed at the result, and they exhibited their 
spleen against Morris, to whorfi. it was in a large degree attributed, 
in a caricature print, in which the stout senator from Pennsylvania 
was seen marching off with the Federal Hall upon his shoulders, 
its windows crowded with members of both Houses, encouraging 
or anathematizing this novel mode of deportation, while the devil, 
from the roof of the Paulus Hook ferry-house, beckoned to him, in 
a patronizing manner, crying, " This way, Bobby ! " 

II. 

Captaest Philip Feeisteaij had remained in 'New York ever 
since the inauguration, and for the greater part of the time had 
been employed by Childs and Swaine, printers of the Daily Ad- 



REMOVAL OF THE aOVEENMENT. 235 

vertiser, as tlieir writing editor. Througli Mr. Madison, with wliom 
he had been intimate while an undergraduate at Princeton college, 
he became acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, who soon discovered his 
useful qualities. During the agitation of the question of the re- 
moval of the seat of government the papers abounded with vari- 
ous articles for or against the several places proposed, and Freneau 
wrote some pungent paragraphs in favor of New York ; but he 
was always most successful in a certain kind of familiar satirical 
verse, and among the effusions of his muse on this subject was the 
following correspondence : 

THE PHILADELPHIA HOUSE-MAID TO HER FRIEND IN NEW YORK. 

Six -weeks my dear mistress has been in a fiet, 
And nothing but Congress will do for her yet — 
She says they must come, or her senses she '11 lose ; 
From morning till night she is reading the news, 
And loves the dear fellows that vote for our town 
(Since no one can relish New York but a clown). . . . 
She tells us as how she has read in her books 
That God gives them meat, but the devil sends cooks ; 
And Grumbleton told us (who often shoots flying) 
That fish you have plenty — but spoil them in frying ; 
That your streets are as crooked, as crooked can be, 
Right forward, three perches, he never could see, 
But his view was cut short with a house or a shop 
That stood in his way — and obliged him to stop. 

Those speakers that wish for New York to decide — 
'T is a pity that talents are so misapplied ! 
My mistress declares she is vext to the heart 
That genius should take such a pitiful part ; 
For the question, indeed, she is daily distrest. 
And Gerry, I think, she will ever detest. 
Who did all he could, with his tongue and his pen, 
To keep the dear Congress shut up in your den. 

She insists, the expense of removing is small, 
And that two or three thousands will answer it all ; 
If that is too much, and we 're so very poor. 
The passage by water is cheaper, be sure : 
If people object the expense of a team. 
Here 's Fitch, with his wherry, will bring them by steam ; 



236 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

And, Nabby ! — if once he should take them on board, 
The Jionor will be a suflficient reward. 
But, as to myself, I vow and declare 
I wish it would suit them to stay where they are ; 
I plainly foresee, that if once they remove. 
Throughout the long day, we shall drive, and be drove. . . . 
Such scouring will be as has never been seen, 
We shall always be cleaning, and never be clean, 
And threats in abundance will work on my fears, 
Of blows on the back, and of cuffs ou the ears. 
Two trifles, at present, discourage her paw, 
The fear of the Lord, and the fear of the law ; 
But if Congress arrive, she will have such a sway 
That gospel and law will be both done away. 
For the sake of a place I must bear all her din. 
And if ever so angry, do nothing but gria ; 
So Congress, I hope, in your town will remain. 
And Narmy will thank them again and again. 

THE NEW YORK HOUSE-MAID TO HER FRIEND IN PHILADELPHIA. 

"Well, Nanny, I am sorry to find, since you writ us, 
The Congress at last has determined to quit usj 
You now may begin, with your dishcloths and brooms, 
To be scouring your knockers and scrubbing your rooms ; 
As for us, my dear Nanny, we 're much in a pet. 
And hundreds of houses will be to be let ; 
Our streets, that were just in a way to look clever. 
Will now bo neglected and nasty as ever ; 
Again we must fret at the Dutchified gutters 
And pebble-stone pavements, that wear out our trotters. 
My master looks dull, and his spirits are sinking, 
From morning till night he is smoking and thinking. 
Laments the expense of destroying the fort, 
And says, your great people are all of a sort ; 
He hopes and he prays they may die in a stall. 
If they leave us in debt — for the Federal Hall ; 
Miss Letty, poor lady, is so in the pouts. 
She values no longer our dances and routs, 
And sits in a corner, dejected and pale. 
As dull as a cat, and as lean as a rail ! — 
Poor thing, I am certain she 's in a decay. 
And all, because Congress resolve — not to stay ! 
This Congress unsettled is, sure, a sad thing — 
Seven years, my dear Nanny, they 've been on the wing ; 



REMOVAL OF THE GOVERNMENT 237 

My master woiild rather saw timber, or dig, 
Than see them removing to Conogocheague — 
Where the houses and kitchens are yet to be framed, 
The trees to be felled, and the streets to be named. 

In a letter from Pliiladelpliia, dated tlie tentli of August, it is 
said, " Some of tlie blessings anticipated from the removal of Con- 
gress to tMs city are already beginning to be apparent ; rents of 
houses have risen, and I fear will continue to rise, shamefully ; even 
in the outskirts they have lately been increased from fourteen, six- 
teen, and eighteen pounds, to twenty-five, twenty-eight, and thu-ty. 
This is oppressive. Our markets, it is expected, will also be dearer 
than heretofore. Whether the advantages we shall enjoy from the 
removal will be equivalent to these disadvantages, time alone will 
determine. I am convinced, however, if things go on iii this man- 
ner, a very great majority of our citizens will have good reason to 
wish the government settled at Conogocheague long before the ten 
years are expii'ed." On the seventh of September Oliver "Wolcott 
referred to this rise of rents, in a letter to his wife. " I have at length 
been to Philadelphia," he says, " and with much difficulty have pro- 
cui'ed a house, in Third street, which is a respectable part of the 
city. The rent is one hundred pounds, which is excessive, being 
nearly double what would have been exacted before the matter of 
residence was determined." 

The appearance of Philadelphia was quite as monotonous then 
as it is now ; but the city contained many fine private residences, 
and Christ's church had for that time a cathedral aii', and the Dutch 
church was described as magnificent. The several edifices appro- 
priated for the use of the federal government were inferior to those 
in New York, but Independence Hall was endeared to the memories 
of many of the senators and representatives, who had been mem- 
bers of the Continental Congress, and ample if not elegant accom- 
modations were promised for all departments of the public service. 



^. if 



238 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

''Philadelpliia is a large and elegant city," writes Wolcott, "but it 
did not strike me witli the astonisLment which the citizens predict- 
ed ; like the rest of mankind they judge favorably of theii* own 
place of residence, and of themselves, and their representations are 
to be admitted with some deduction." One attraction of Philadel- 
phia, however, could not well be overpraised ; her markets were 
perhaps the best in the world ; and we have the testimony of nu- 
merous travellers to their extraordinary neatness, their order, and 
the general moderation of their prices. 

III. 

The private life of Washington was scarcely less remarkable 
than his great career as founder of the republic ; indeed it is ques- 
tionable whether such qualities as have made men eminent in pub- 
lic affairs were ever before or since illustrated to an equal extent 
by their possessors in a domestic and household administration. It 
has been said of Wellington that he would have made but an in- 
different drill sergeant, but Washington would have been as excel- 
lent in the lowest as he was in the highest offices, as exact in the 
performance of humble duties as he was in the execution of great 
designs upon which hung so much of the well-being of the human 
race. 

Some interesting exhibitions of his judgment, justice, and ex- 
treme particularity, as the head of his family, are contained in the 
letters which he addressed to Mr. Lear, one of his private secre- 
taries, respecting the removal of his personal effects from New 
York to Philadelphia, and the preparation of a new residence for 
his occupation. Four days after he left New York he wrote 
him from Philadelphia, "After a pleasant journey we arrived 
in this city on Thursday last, and to-morrow we proceed (if Mrs. 
Washington's health will permit, for she has been much indisposed 



REMOVAL OF THE GOVERNMENT. 239 

since we came here) toward Mount Vernon. The house of ]\Ir. 
Bohert Morris had, previous to my arrival, "been taken by the cor- 
poration for my residence. It is the best they could get. It is, I 
beheve, the best single house in the city. Yet without additions 
it is inadequate to the commodious accommodation of my family. 
These additions I believe will be made. The fii'st floor contains 
only two public rooms (except one for the upper servants). The 
second floor will have two public (di'awing) rooms, and with the 
aid of one room, with a partition in it, in the back building, will 
be sufficient for the use of Mrs. Washington and the children, and 
their maids, besides aftbrding her a small place for a private study 
and di^essing room. The third story will furnish you and Mrs. 
Lear with a good lodging room, a pubhc office (for there is no room 
below for one), and two rooms for the gentlemen of the family. 
The garret has four good rooms, which must serve Mr. and Mrs. 
Hyde,* unless they should prefer the room over the work-house, 
William, and such servants as it may not be better to place in the 
projDosed additions to the back building. There is a room over the 
stable which may serve the coachman and postillions, and there is 
a smoke house, which may possibly be more valuable for the use of 
servants than for the smoking of meats. The intention of the ad- 
dition to the back building is to provide a servant's hall, and one 
or two lodging rooms for the servants. There are good stables, 
but for twelve horses only, and a coach house, which will hold all 
my carriages. Speaking of carriages, I have left my coach to re- 
ceive a thorough repair, by the time I return, which I expect will 
be before the first of December." 

The legislature about the same time appropriated for his occu- 
pation a fine building in South Mnth street, on the grounds now 
covered by the University. The industrious antiquary, ISIi fohn 

* Mr. Hyde "was butler, or intendent of tlie kitclien, in New York. 



240 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

F. Watson, is entirely wrong in supposing that tlie President de- ^ 
clined to accept tliis lionse because of " tlie great expense of fur- 
nisliino- it on his own account." A principal cause of Ms refusal of 
the .offer of the state government was that he would on no consid- 
eration live in a house which should not be hired and furnished 
exclusively with his own means. The commonwealth and the muni- 
cipahty were both but too willing to relieve him of any drain upon 
his private fortune for the support of his personal establishment, 
still cherishing hopes that Philadelphia, notwithstanding the act of 
Congress for the purchase of Conogocheague, might remain perma- 
nently the seat of government ; and Washington could not fail of 
regarding their generous offers for his domestic accommodation as 
intended in some degree to influence his own judgment or action 
on this subject. Another reason may be found in the determina- 
tion of the President to live in a style of the utmost simplicity and 
modesty that should seem compatible with the dignity of his offi- 
cial position. Mr. Morris's house was on the south side of High 
street, near Fifth street. It was three stories high, and about thirty- 
two feet wide, with a front displaying four windows in the second 
as well as in the third story, and three in the first — two on one side 
of the hall and one on the other — and a single door, approached by 
three heavy steps of gray stone. On each side of the house were 
vacant lots, used as a garden, and containing trees and shrubbery. 

Washington directed Mr. Lear, repeatedly, to ascertain what 
would be the rent, but to the middle of November the secretary had 
been unsuccessful. He then wrote to him, " I am, I must confess, 
exceedingly unwilling to go into any house without first knowing on 
what terms I do it, and wish this sentiment could be again hinted 
in delicate terms to the parties concerned with me. I cannot, if 
there are no latent motives which govern this case, see any difficulty 
in the business. Mr. Morris has most assuredly formed an idea of 



THE REMOVAL. 241 

what ought m equity to be the rent of the tenement in the condi- 
tion he left it ; and with this aid the committee ought, I conceive, 
to he as little at a loss in determinino^ what it should rent for, with 
the additions and alterations which are about to be made, and 
which ought to be done in a plain and neat and not by any means 
in an extravagant style ; because the latter is not only contrary to 
my wish, but v/ould really be detrimental to my interest and con- 
venience, principally because it would be the means of keeping me 
out of the use and comforts of the house to a late period, and be- 
cause the furniture and every thing else would requii'e to be accor- 
dant therewith ; besides making me pay an extravagant price, per- 
haps, to accommodate the alterations to the taste of another, or 
the exorbitant rates of the workman. I do not know nor do I be- 
lieve that any thuig unfair is intended by either Mr. Morris or the 
connnittee ; but let us for a moment su]3pose that the rooms (the 
new ones I mean) were to be hung with tapestry, or a very rich 
and costly paper, neither of which would suit my present furniture ; 
that costly ornaments for the bow windows, extravagant chimney- 
pieces, and the hke, were to be provided ; that workmen, from ex- 
travagance of the times, for every twenty shillings' worth of wor]£ 
would charge forty shillings ; and that advantage would be taken 
of the occasion to newly paint every part of the house and build- 
ings : would there be any propriety in adding ten or twelve-and-a- 
half per cent, for aU this to the rent of the house in its original 
state, for the two years that I am to hold it ? If the solution of these 
questions is in the negative, wherein lies the difficulty of determin- 
ing that the houses and lots when finished according to the pro- 
posed plan ought to rent for so much ? When all is done that can 
be done, the residence will not be so commodious as that I left in 
New York, for there (and the want of it will be found a real in- 
convenience at Mr. Morris's) my office was in the front room, be- 
31 



242 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

low, where persons on business immediately entered ; whereas, in 
the present case, tliey will have to ascend two pairs of stairs, and 
to pass by the public rooms as well as the private chambers, to get 
to it. Notwithstanding which I am willing to allow as much as 
was paid to Mr. McComb, and shall say nothing if more is demand- 
ed, unless there is apparent extortion, or the policy of delay is to 
see to what height rents will rise before mine is fixed. In either 
of these cases I shall not be pleased ; and to occupy the premises 
at the expense of any public body, I will not." The rent was ulti- 
mately settled at three thousand dollars a year, and at this rate the 
house was occupied until Washington ceased to be President.* 

* In "A Sketch, ia Part from Memory," embracing interesting reminiscences of Philadelphia 
in the concluding years of the last century, and attributed to that accomplished statesman, Mr. 
Richard Rush, I find the following sentences respecting this house : " Walking lately down Mar- 
ket street, from the western part of the city," says the author, " I looked about, after passing 
Sixth street, for the former residence of General Washington. I thought I had discovered it, 
though greatly metamorphosed, in a house some half dozen doors below Sixth street, on the 
south side, which still retained a little of <;Jie old fashion in front, with dentels pendant from the 
coi'nice ; but, on inquiry, I found that it was not. The mansion of Washington stood by itself 
It was a large double house ; few, if any, equal to it; are at present in Philadelphia, the house built 
bj' LIr. Bingham in Third street, near Spruce street, excepted, though that is much cut down 
from its oi-iginal size and appearance. The brick of the house in which Washington lived was, 
even in his time, dark with age ; and two ancient lamp posts, furnished with large lamj)s, which 
stood in front on the pavement near the street, marked it, in conjunction with the whole external 
aspect, as the abode of opulence and respectability before he became its august tenant. No 
market-house then stood in the street. To the east, a brick wall six or seven feet high ran well 
on towards Fifth street, until it met other houses. The wall inclosed a garden which was shaded 
by lofty old trees, and ran back to what is now Minor street, where the stables stood. All is now 
gone. Not a trace is left of that once venerable and stately residence, for it had intrinsically 
something of the latter characteristic by its detached situation, and the space left around it for 
accommodation on all sides. To the west no building adjoined it, the nearest house in that di- 
rection standing at a fair distance from it, at the corner of Sixth and Market streets, where lived 
Robert Morris, one of the great men of the revolution, and the well known friend of Washington. 
What hallowed recollections did not that neighborhood awaken ! / The career of Washington, his 
consummate wisdom, his transcendant services, his full-orbed glory, his spotless, matchless fame ! 
Let no future Plutarch, said one of his biographers, attempt a parallel ; let none among the dead 
or living appear in the same picture with him. He stands alone. In the annals of time, it is 
recorded as the single glory of republican America, to have given to the world such an example 
of human perfection. History has consecrated it to the instruction of mankind ; and happy if 
republican America shall cleave to the maxims which he bequeathed to her in a paper pronounced, 
by an eminent English historian, to be unequalled by any composition of uninspired wisdom. 



THE REMOVAL. 24S 

In regard to servants, lie liad abeady written to Mr. Lear; 
" The pressure of business under wMcli I labored for several days 
before I left New York allowed me no time to inquii^e wbo of the 
female servants it was proposed or thought advisable to remove 

here, besides the wives of the footmen, James and Fidas With 

respect to Mr. Hyde and his wife, if it is not stated on some paper 
handed in by Mr. Hyde, it is nevertheless strong on my recollection, 
that his wife's services were put down at one and his own services 
at two hundred dollars per annum. I have no wish to j)art with 
Mr. or Mrs. Hyde, first, because I do not like to be changing, and 
second, because I do not know where or with whom to supply their 
places. On the score of accounts, I can say nothing, having never 
taken a comparative view of his and Fraunces's ; but I am exceed- 
ingly mistaken if the expenses of the second table, at which Mr. 
Hyde presides, have not greatly exceeded those of the tables kept by 
Fraunces, for I strongly suspect (but in this I may be mistaken) 
that nothing is brought to my table, of liquors, fruits, or other lux- 
uries, that is not used as profusely at his. If my suspicions are un- 
founded I shall be sorry for having entertained them, and if they 
are not, it is at least questionable whether under his successor the 
same things might not be done ; in which case, (if Hyde is honest 
and careful, of which you are better able to judge than I am,) a 
change without a benefit might take place, which is not desirable 
if they are to be retained on proper terms. I say they, for if Mrs. 
Hyde is necessary for the purposes enumerated in your letter, and 
the cook is not competent to prepare the dessert, make cake, <fec., I 
do not see of what use Hyde will be, more than William, without 

Thrice favoi-ed Virginia, to have formed the early life of such a man — to have rocked his cradle, 
and to contain his ashes! In Holland there is still to be seen the building, small and shed' like 
aa it is, carefully kept in its original state, in -which Peter the Great, of Russia, lived whilst 
working in the naval dock-yard at Sardam, in 169Y; but I could find no vestige of the Phila- 
delphia domicil of Washington, relatively recent as was the day when his living presence sanc> 
tified it." 



244 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

her Fraunces, besides being an excellent cook, knowing bow to 

provide genteel dinners, and giving aid in dressing tbem, prepared 
tbe dessert, made the cake, and did every tbing tbat is done by 
Hyde and bis wife together ; consequently tbe ser\dces of Hyde alone 
are not to be compared witb tbose of Frannces ; and if bis accounts 
exceed tbose of Fraunces, in tbe same seasons, four or five pounds a 
week, and at tbe same time appear fair, I sball bave no scruple to ac- 
knowledge tbat I bave entertained mucb harder thoughts of him 
than I ought to bave done; although it is unaccountable to me 
bow other families, on twenty-five hundred or three thousand dol- 
lars a year, should be enabled to entertain more company, or at 
least entertain more frequently, than I could do for twenty-five 
thousand dollars." 

Of tbe style in which tbe presidential residence was furnished 
an impression may be derived from some further extracts from the 
same series of letters. The President writes soon after : " Mr. and 
Mrs. Morris bave insisted upon leaving tbe two laige looking-glasses 
which are in their best rooms because they bave no place, they say, 
proper to remove them to, and because they are unwilling to haz- 
ard tbe taking of tbem down. You will, therefore, let them bave 
instead tbe choice of mine : tbe large ones I purchased of tbe French 
minister they do not incline to take, but will be glad of some of 
tbe others. They wUl also leave a large glass lamp in tbe entry or 

ball, and will take one or more of my glass lamps in lieu of it 

Mrs. Morris has a mangle (I think it is called) for ironing clothes, 
which, as it is fixed in tbe place where it is commonly used, she 
proposes to leave, and take mine. To this I have no objection, pro- 
vided mine is equally good and convenient ; but if I should obtain 
any advantages, besides that of its being up and ready for use, I 
am not incHned to receive it. 

" I bave no particular dii^ection to give respecting the appropria- 



THE REMOVAL. 245 

tion of tlie furniture. By means of the bow windows the hack 
rooms will "become the largest, and of course will receive the fur- 
niture of the largest dining and di'awing rooms, and in that case, 
though there are no closets in them, there are some in the steward's 
room, directly opposite, which are not inconvenient. There is a 
small room adjoining the kitchen, that might, if it is not essential 
for other purposes, be appropriated for the Sevres china, and other 
things of that sort, which are not in common use. Mrs. Morris, 
who is a notable lady in family arrangements, can give you much 
information on all the conveniences about the house and buildino-s, 
and I dare say would rather consider it as a compliment to be con- 
sulted in those matters, as she is so near, than a trouble to give her 
opinion of them. 

" I approve, at least till inconvenience or danger shall appear, 
of the large table ornaments remaining on the sideboard, and of 
the pagodas standing in the smallest drawing-room. Had I de- 
livered my sentiments fi'om here respecting this fixture, that is the 
apartment I should have named for it. Whether the green, which 
you have, or a new yellow curtain, should be appropriated to the 
stau'case above the hall, may depend on your getting an exact 
match, in color and so forth, of the latter. For the sake of appear- 
ances one would not, in instances of this kind, regard a small addi- 
tional expense." 

In other letters we have the same minuteness of detail as to the 
proper modes of packing porcelain, glass, and other articles, and 
such indications of taste as show that Washington perfectly under- 
stood the proprieties of an effective arrangement of furniture, and 
was careful that his own home should, in this respect at least, ap- 
pear to the best advantage. 

Washington has never been presented as an inventor, and his 
name probably is not to be found in the Patent Office ; but in the 



246 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

following extract lie appears as tlie author of the wine-coaster, an 
article wliicli for more than a quarter of a century was a necessity 
on every dinner-table. " Enclosed," he writes to Mr. Lear, " I send 
you a letter from Mr. Gouverneur Morris, with a bill of the cost 
of the articles he was to send me. The prices of the plated ware 
exceed — far exceed — the utmost bounds of my calculation; but 
as I am j^ersuaded he has done what he conceives right, I am satis- 
fied, and request you to make immediate payment to Mr. Consta- 
ble, if you can raise the means As these coolers are designed for 

warm weather, and will be, I presume, useless in cold, or in that in 
which the liquors do not require cooling, quere^ would not a stand 
hke that for castors, with four apertures for so many different kinds 
of liquors, each aperture just sufficient to hold one of the cut de- 
canters sent by Mr. Morris, be more convenient, for passing the bot- 
tles from one to another, than the handing each bottle sej)arately, 
by which it often haj)pens that one bottle moves, another stops, and 
all are in confusion? Two of them — one for each end of the 
table, with a flat bottom, with or without feet, open at the side, but 
with a raised rim, as castor stands have, and an upright, by way of 
handle, in the middle — could not cost a great deal even if made 
wholly of silver. Talk to a silversmith and ascertain the cost, and 
whether they could be immediately made, if required, in a hand- 
some fashion. Perhaps the coolers sent by Mr. Morris may afford 
ideas of taste ; perhaps, too, (if they prove not too heavy, when 
examined,) they may supersede the necessity of such as I have de- 
scribed, by answering the purpose themselves. Four double flint 
l:)ottles (such as I suspect Mr. Morris has sent) will weigh, I conjec- 
tm-e, four pounds ; the wine in them when they are filled will be 
eight pounds more, which, added to the weight of the coolers, will, 
I fear, make these latter too unwieldy to pass, especially by ladies, 
which induces me to think of a frame in the form of castors." 



THE EEMOVAL. 247 

\ Tliongli Mrs. Wasliington is said by some people wlio liave " 
written descriptions or memoirs of lier, to have "been a very nota- 
ble housewife, it does not aj)pear from any correspondence or other 
documents which have fallen under my observation that she ever 
did much to relieve the General of the trouble of household affau"S. 
They evidently lived together on very exce]lent terms, though she 
sometimes was disposed to quarrel with him about her grand- 
childi'en, who, he insisted, (and he always carried his point,) should 
be under thorough disciplinarians as well as competent teachers, 
when they were sent from home to be educated. On one occasion, 
however, he writes to Mr. Lear in a manner that evinces his wish to 
yield to her as much as possible : " As to a coachman," he says, 
" Mrs. Washington's predilection for Jacob is as strong as my pre- 
judice and fears are great ; yet in your inquiries after one, ask some- 
thing concerning Jacoh^ who wanted much, it seems, to return to 
us, while we were at Philadelphia." In the matter of coachmen 
and postillions he does not appear to have been very fortunate. 
He had written back to New York from Spurrier's, in Maryland, 
when on his way to Mount Vernon : " "With some difficulty (from 
the most infamous roads that ever were seen) we have got to this 
place, and are awaiting dinner, but have no expectation of reaching 
Baltimore to-night. Dunn has given such proof of his want of 
skill in driving, that I find myself under the necessity of looking 
out for some one to take his place. Before we reached Elizabeth- 
town we were obliged to take him from the coach and put him on 
the wagon. This he turned over twice, and this morning he was 
found much intoxicated. He has also got the horses into a habit 
of stopping." And his attention to equipage is illustrated in a 
communication as to the clothes of his footmen. " Upon examining 
the caps of Giles and Paris," he says, " I find they (especially that 
of Paris) are much worn, and will be unfit to appear in with de- 



248 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

cency, after the journey from here is performed. I therefore re- 
quest that you will have two new ones made, with fuller and richer 
tassels at the top than the old ones have. That the maker of them 
may have some guide, as to the size, the inclosed dimensions of their 
heads will, I presume, be sufficient." 

Mrs. Washington is frequently referred to in his letters, when 
absent, in a manner which evinces a constant thoughtfulness of her 
happiness. On one occasion he writes to Mr. Lear, " Furnish ]\ii'S. 
Washington with what money she may want, and from time to 
time ask her if she does want, as she is not fond of applying." 
Again, " I send, with my best remembrances, a sermon for her. I 
presume it is good, coming all the way from New Hampshire ; but 
do not vouch for it, not having read a word of it." 

No one can read these very curious and characteristic letters 
and not recall with a feeling of indignation those charges of inor- 
dinate and anti-republican state and splendor, which the imj)ossi- 
bility of detecting any fault in the administration of weightier 
affaii'S caused the " democrats " of that time to bruit every where 
against the great founder and chief of the federal party. No wis- 
dom or discretion, though these qualities had been imparted in a 
superhuman prodigality, nor any conduct, even if under the most 
absolute control of the divine intelligence, could, however, have 
averted those rabble assaults upon the stainless fame of Washing- 
ton, which distracted his councils, and occasioned him so much un- 
happiness. He himself says, in a letter to Catherine Macaulay, 
" Our wishes were limited, and I think that our plan of living will 
now be deemed reasonable, by the considerate part of our species. 
Mrs. Washington's ideas coincide with my own, as to simplicity of 
dress, and every thing which can tend to support propriety of 
character, without partaking of the follies of luxury and ostenta- 
tion." Byron, contemplating this spectacle, erred as greatly as the 



THE KEMOVAL. 249 

simple-liearted hero, in estimating the malignant daring of the yet 
feeble but rapidly growing opposition to the government. The 
noble bard exclaims : 

, " Where may the wearied eye repose 

When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows, 

Nor despicable state 7 
Yes — one, — the first, the last, the best, 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 

Whom Envy dared not hate^ 
Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
To make man blush there was but one ! " 

VI. 

The removal of the liouseliold of the Vice President appears 
to have been conducted under the immediate superintendence of 
Mrs. Adams, who describes her new residence, called Bush Hill, in 
a letter to her daughter. " Though there remains neither bush nor 
shrub upon it, and very few trees, except the pine grove behind 
it, yet Bush Hill," she says, " is a very beautiful place ; but the 
grand and the sublime I left at Richmond Hill. The cultivation in 
sight, and the prospect, are superior ; but the Schuylkill is no more 
like the Hudson than I to Hercules. The house is better furnished 
within ; but when you come to compare the conveniences for store- 
room, kitchen, closets, and so forth, it has nothing like them. As 
chance governs many actions of my life, when we arrived in the 
city we came directly here. By accident, the vessel with our furni- 
ture had arrived the day before, and Briesler was taking the first 
load into a house all green-painted, the workmen being there with 
brushes in hand. This was a cold comfort, where, I suppose, no fire 
had been kindled in several years, except in a back kitchen ; but ag 
I expected many things of this kind I was not disappointed nor 
discomfited. As no wood or fodder had been provided, we could 



250 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

only turn about and go to the City Tavern for tlie night. The next 
mornin^- was pleasant, and I ventured to come up and take posses- 
sion ; but what confusion ! boxes, barrels, chairs, tables, trunks, 
every thing, to be arranged, and few hands to accomplish it — for 
Briesler was obliged to be at the vessel. The fii-st oBject was to 
get fires ; the next to get up beds ; but the cold damp rooms, and 
the new paint, proved almost too much for me. On Friday we 
arrived here, and late on Saturday evening we got our furniture in. 
On Sunday, Thomas was laid up with the rheumatism ; on Monday, 
I was obliged to give Louisa an emetic ; on Tuesday, Mrs. Briesler 
was taken with her old pain ; and; to complete the whole, on Thm's- 
day, Polly was seized with a violent pleuritic fever. She has been 
twice bled, had a blister on her side, and has not been out of bed 
since, only as she is taken up to have her bed made. And every 
day, the stormy ones excepted, from eleven until three, the house 
is filled with ladies and gentlemen. As all this is no more nor 
worse than I expected, I bear it without repining, and feel thankful 
that I have weathered it out without a relapse, though some days 
I have not been able to sit up. Mrs. Bingham has been twice to 
see me. I think she is more amiable and beautiful than ever. I 
have seen many very fine women since I have been here. Our 
Nancy Hamilton is the same unaffected and affable girl we formerly 
knew her. She made many kind inquiries after you ; so did Mrs. 
Bingham. I have not yet begun to return visits, as the ladies 
expect to find me at home, and I have not been in a state of health 
to do it ; nor am I yet in a very eligible state to receive theii* visits. 
[ however endeavored to have one room decent, to receive them, 
which, with my own chamber, is as much as I can at present boast 
of having in tolerable order. The difficulty of getting workmen, 
Mr. Hamilton pleads as an excuse for the house not being ready. 
Mrs. Lear was in to see me yesterday, and assm'es me that I am 



THE KEM OVAL. 251 

mucli better off tlian Mrs. WasMngton will be when slie arrives, 
for that tlieii' house is not likely to be completed tliis year. And, 
when all is done, it will not be Broadway ! If New York wanted 
any revenge for the removal, the citizens might be glutted if they 
would come here, where every article has risen to almost double its 
price, and whereit is not possible for Congress and their appendages 
for a long time to be half as well accommodated. One would sup- 
pose that the people thought Mexico was before them, and that 
the Congress were its possessors. 

" We have had two severe storms ; the last was snow. Poor 
Mrs. Knox is in great tribulation about her furniture. The vessel 
sailed the day before the fii'st storm, and had not been heard of on 
Friday last. I had a great misfortune haj^pen to my best trunk of 
clothes. The vessel sprung a leak, and my trunk got wet, a foot 
high, by which means I have several gowns spoiled; the one 
you worked is the most damaged, and a black satin — the blessed 
effects of tumbling about the world." 

During all the autumn the roads through New Jersey looked 
like a street in New York on the &st of May ; but the removal 
was finally accomplished, and the furniture of the public offices and 
private houses was transferred to the new metropohs. Among 
women Philadelphia become popular, but the men, especially those 
of the eastern states, were generally ill pleased with the change, and 
perhaps little disposed to look upon it in an amiable way. Wol- 
cott wrote : " The people of this state are very proud of their city, 
their wealth, and their supposed knowledge. I have seen many of 
their principal men, and discover nothing that tempts me to idola- 
try ; I must see and examine before I say much, but I do not expect 
that a more intimate acquaintance will furnish me with any self- 
humiliating sensations." Mr. James Monroe, whose " good feeling " 
was so proverbial, could not refrain from saying, " The city seems at 



252 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

present to be mostly inhabited by sharpers ; " and ^Ii*. Jeremiah 
Smith, of New Hampshke, remarked in a letter to his brother, 
" The accomits you have always had of this great and beautiful 
city will bhnd the eyes of your understanding, as they did mine. 
The Philadelphians are, from the highest to the lowest, from the 
parson in ^his black gown to the fille de joie^ or gu4 of pleasure, a 
set of beggars. You cannot turn round without paying a dollar." 
But regrets for New York, and uncivil accusations against Philadel- 
phians for making as much as they could, in an honest way, of theii* 
victory over that now deserted city, gradually subsided and were 
lost in the more agreeable excitement of preparing for the season 
in the gay world. ^ 




jm3.ia£a: mo. ozaarAanAir. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADElPHIi. 



No just exhibition can be given of American society in the days 
of WasHngton, wliick does not present in considerable fulness a 
view of society in Pliiladelpliia. The early career of Washington 
was connected with this city. Here was assembled the Congress of 
17 76, and around it, as around a centre, are clustered many memo- 
ries of the revolution. From Philadelphia the constitution was 
given to the world. " Here, most of all," to use the language of 
Mr. Everett, " was the home of Washington ; here he resided for 
a longer term than he did in any other place, his own Virginia; 
alone excepted. Six most important years of his life were spent 
in Philadelphia ; the house in which he lived is known ; his seat in 
church is still pointed out ; persons yet survive who have felt the 
touch of his hands upon their childish heads ; and this spot, we 
may well believe, will be among the last where his memory will 
cease to be revered, and the last where the love of that union 
and that constitution which was so near to his great heart, will 
ever be forgotten." In the present chapter I shall therefore de- 
scribe with some particularity this former metropolis of our coun- 
try, its territorial extent and progress, its families who were most 
distinguished, its religious sects, its professions of divinity, law, 



254 • THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

and medicine, and, so far as I can, " sitting," as Lord Bacon says, 
"■' so far off," and witli such lights as I have, whatever made np its 
social system. 

The families whose names appear on the twelfth and thirteenth 
pages of this volume, where, with other records, I have transcribed 
the lists of the old " City Dancing Assembly," still remained the 
principal peoj)le of Philadelphia when the revolution broke out. 
A few adhered to the British cause, such as the Galloways, some 
of the Aliens, the Penns, and, I think, several of the Lawrences and 
Bonds, who returned to England. Others, apparently of Scottish 
origin, whose allegiance to the house of Hanover was never very 
strong, retired to their seats in the country. This, I presume, was 
the case with the Grsemes, who resided during the early part of 
the war at Graeme Park. I am not able to state from any records 
to which I have had access, to what extent the respectable family 
of McCall supported the revolutionary cause. Mr. Wallace re- 
tired to a seat of his called Ellershe, in New Jersey, at which 
place, or at Burlington, his family remained until his grandsons, 
in 1797, went back to their residence in Philadelj^hia. There were 
other families, such as that of Lardner, connected with the Pro- 
prietaries, whose movements I have not been able to trace. The 
return of peace brought some change, of course, in the social 
structure. A successful revolution had been accomplished. Men 
who before were but little known in the public or social sphere 
had now become leaders in one, and aspired to be equals in the 
other. An eccentric loyalist who had left the city in 1YT6, la- 
ments pathetically on his return in 1791, that on looking over the 
Directory he " scarce knew above three or four names in a hun- 
dred," that his " native country appeared almost a desert," and 
that " the iqMarts made him feel too sensibly the difference be- 
tween his present and former condition." That portion of the 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 255 

provincial aristocracy wMcli derived its importance from a connec- 
tion with tlie crown, and liad not supported the cause of the colo- 
nies, had now, of course, lost all its political authority, and in the 
great field which the acknowledgment of indejDendence opened 
for ambition and ability, men were " looking into the seeds of 
time " to see " which grain would grow and which would not." 
With all this, however, any one acquainted with the state of so- 
ciety in Philadelphia after the revolution, will perceive that its 
distinctions rested essentially on the old foundations. The old 
names had still, as they have to-day, though associated with very 
little merit of any kind in some who bear them, a prestige which 
was socially of dominant influence. And on the whole it was well 
deserved. On the conclusion of the 2:)eace the city was character- 
ized by a style of life quite as elegant as any which has since pre- 
vailed, and much more elegant and liberal than any which 
prevails now. It was the elegance of dignity, moral worth, and 
the consciousness of gentility. Its wealth, indeed, was chiefly 
commercial, but its commerce was of a diiferent kind from that 
of the present age. The " infamous practice of stock jobbing," 
as it is justly called in the statutes of England, had not diffused 
itself through the ramifications of trade, or been generally and 
shamelessly indulged. Commerce, Originating in its true spirit, 
and pm'sued according to tlie rules of a high moral integrity, was 
the vocation of the Willings, the Francises, and the McCalls. It 
brought not less generous nor less sure returns than that of 
modern dealers ; but its wealth, less suddenly acquired and less 
generally diffused, had that honorable source, that rejDOse of 
character, and that stability of endurance, which renders wealth 
more valuable for the respectability it imj)arts than as a means of 
material luxury. 

It is true that the limits of the city, even as late as the period 



258 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

of Wasliington's administratiou, were very narrow m comparison 
witli those wliicli now "bound its compactly built area. Front, 
Second Third, and Fourth streets, on the Delaware side, were its 
principal avenues, and it did not from any point extend much 
west of Sixth street. 

The city began near where the navy yard is now, and gradually 
extended north along the river. It is customary to speak of its 
immense growth toward the north-west as modern. In the main 
it is so. But Callowhill street, which was named by Penn after 
his second wife, was one of its earliest thoroughfares, and some of 
the oldest houses in the city are in this very northern district. 
The extension towards the Schuylkill has been more recent. At 
the close of the last century society and fashion were still upon 
the Delaware. Just before the revolution. Chief Justice Allen's 
residence was on the east side of Water street, below Market. 
Mr. Joseph Sims, a merchant of extensive business, who built at 
a later date the noble residence now occupied by his niece, Mrs. E. 
S. Burd, on the corner of Ninth and Chestnut, wa,s living between 
sixty and seventy years ago in Third below Pine. Mr. Alexander 
J. Dallas, a dashing young lawyer who, without any property, had 
come hither from the West Indies to try his fortune, was in Front 
above Pine. The Stockers,' Philipses, Barclays, and other mer- 
chants of great respectability, though not of high fashion, were in 
Front not far from Pine ; Mr. Swanwick, for some years the part- 
ner of Thomas Willing and of Kobert Morris, lived, I think, in Penn 
street ; Colonel Thomas Lloyd Moore, a military gentleman well 
kuown in the gay world of that day, — a son of William Moore, 
President of Pennsylvania — in Pine above Second ; some of the 
older Binghams, I believe, not far from the same now busy region ; 
the Eeverend Doctor Blackwell, in the large house in Pine below 
Third, still standing; Chief Justice McKean nearly opposite, at 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 257 

the northeast corner of Pine and THrd; Mr. Eoss, a merchant 
of eminence whom I mention elsewhere as proprietor of a beauti- 
ful country seat called the Grange, had erected for his residence 
the very large house at the corner of Second and Pine ; Mr. John 
Beale Bordley, with his accomplished daughter, afterwards Mrs, 
James Gibson, in Union, near Third ; the McCalls, in Second, near 
Pine ; Mr. Phillips, an English gentleman, of social distinction, at 
the southwest corner of Spruce and Third ; General Walter Stew- 
art, at one time, in the aristocratic mansion afterwards occupied by 
Mr. Camac, and more recently by Mi*. Peter, the British consul, 
in Third, below Spruce ; Mrs. Bingham, Mi's. Powell, Chief Jus- 
tice Chew, and Mr. Thomas Willing, in Third above Spruce ; Mrs. 
Harrison (then lately Miss Sophia Francis), opposite ; Bell's British 
Book Shop, the fashionable literary mart of the day, was in Thii'd 
near Pear ; Judge Wilson lived in " Wilson's House," or " Fort 
Wilson," at the southwest corner of Thii'd and Walnut, — the 
grounds extending far down Third ; Andrew Hamilton, who had 
married Miss Franks, a Jewess of some celebrity, at the northwest 
corner, oj)posite ; Doctor Kush was in Walnut, near Third ; Chie^ 
Justice Shippen in Fourth below Walnut ; Doctor William Ship- 
pen at the southwest corner of Fourth and Prime ; and Mr. 
Charles Biddle, vice president of the state, and father of the late 
accomplished Mr. Nicholas Biddle, in Chestnut above Fourth. 
Louis Philippe d'Orleans lodged, at one period, at the northeast 
corner of Front and Callowhill ; Talleyrand, for a short time, in 
the same neighborhood, and, with the Duke de Liancourt, Yolney, 
and Moreau de St. Mery, was taught English by William Cobbett, 
at the house of a French merchant in Front below Market. Cob- 
bett himself resided in Callowhill above Second. The post office, 
kept by Mr. Patten, was in Front near Chestnut, and the Treasury 

of the United States, during Mr. Wolcot's time, in Chestnut above 
33 



258 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Third. General Hamilton lived, I tMnk, in Market above Third. 
Doctor Franklin, as is well-known, owned nearly a square, in this 
vicinity ; the entrance to his house being by a court, from Market 
street, and his gardens running back all the way to Chestnut. In- 
deed until lYOS Market street, from Third to Fourth, was yet open 
ground. The University of Pennsylvania, from which Charles 
Thompson, then a teacher there, had been summoned by the Con- 
gress of 1776 to be the Secretary of that body, was in Fourth 
above Market ; and here, about this time, in an upper room, Noah 
Webster, as a tutor of the college, was teaching with humble 
fidelity the elements of English. 

Quite in the lower part of the city, too, were all the places of 
worship, and the courts of justice. Christ Church and St. Peter 'Sj 
now a Sabbath day's journey from the homes of those who stiU 
cling to the, places where their fathers worshipped, were then in 
the centre of fashion. The church of the Presbyterian aristocracy 
of that day, " Old Buttonwood," as it was commonly called, from 
a range of ancient sycamores which grew along its front, was 
in Market street near Second. The great German Lutheran 
church, afterwards destroyed by fire, to which Mr. Muhlenberg, 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, had given a noble organ, 
(as the best means, it was alleged, of securing the votes of his 
musical countrymen,) was in Fourth near Cherry. Of the Friends' 
meeting houses I need say but little. Quite in the eastern part 
of the town sixty years ago, they remain there still, or have dis- 
appeared altogether. They have never at any time gone with 
fashion. The first Baptist church, a secession from which gave to 
the architecture of Philadelphia the circular edifice in which Doc- 
tor Stoughton preached, in George street, still stands in a recess 
from the southwest corner of Arch and Second, surrounded now 
by lofty warehouses, and invisible from the streets ; an enduring 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 259 

tliougli deserted monument of the liberality of tlie denomination. 
The sect of Socinus, notwithstanding the eminence of Doctor 
Priestley, had not in the days of "Washington any considerable 
distinction in Philadelphia/^ The court house in which William 
Bradford, Ingersoll, and the elder Sargeant, laid the foundations 
of their professional fame, was over the market place at the cross- 
ing of Market and Second streets. At the Third street extremity 
of this square stood the pillory, in which, until the humane efforts 
of the first named of these eminent persons had procured that 
beneficent change in the criminal code of America which com- 
mends his name to enduring gratitude, convicts stood to be pelted 
by the populace with eggs, or whipped, with lashes on their naked 
backs, every Wednesday and Saturday. 

Mr. Stille, for many years the only considerable tailor of the 
city, had been in Front street near Chestnut ; and although with 
the arrival of Congress, and the influx of foreigners from the revo- 
lutions in France and St. Domingo, style and fashion, which then 
first made a strong invasion on the quaker cuts and colors of Phila- 
delphia costume, introduced the well-known Charles C. Watson, an 
artist of higher style, even he did not venture to advance further 
west than Chestnut below Third. When he died there, a few 

* The late Bishop White used, by way of showing the impolicy of religious persecution, to tell 
this anecdote in regard to the rise and progress of Unitarianism in Philadelphia : The sect was 
founded in Philadelphia so far back as the time of Dr. Priestley, hut never made much progress 
beyond holding meetings in a small room in Cherry Alley. But Dr. Priestley being a man of mark, 
one of the Trinitarian divines opened a long continued and severe attack upon the new association. 
Many years after this the Unitarian body applied to the legislature for a charter. When the biU 
came up in committee some member asked, 

*' Who are these Unitarians ? " 

"They were an obscure sect," replied one of the persons interested in the passage of the bill, 
" who used to hold forth in Cherry Alley ; and we should have been there yet but for the Rev- 
erend Doctor ■" 

"Indeed," said the member, " is Dr. inclined that way ? I am surprised." 

" He is not at all so," was the response, " but we were very poor, — utterly unknown, and 
making no converts, tiU he began to fulminate at us, when several members of his own parish 
hunted us out, and, being pleased with us, never went back to him." 



260 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

years ago, lie liad long "been left " high and dry " by the receding 
tides of fashion, which had swept entii-ely past him toward the 
Schuylkill. Oellers, who had converted the college of Philadel- 
phia, in Chestnut just above Sixth, into the City Hotel, had gone 
much further in the same direction for 1795, than the proprietors 
of the La Pierre have since done/in going nearly a mile beyond 
him into Broad street. 

In 1792 Mr. George Clymer had built the small but tasteful 
residence in Chestnut street below Seventh, afterwards occupied 
by Mrs. Sophia Harrison. The President and Mr. Robert Morris 
had led the line of fashion into Market or High street ; and Mr. 
Boudinot, recently appointed by Washington Director of the 
Mint, (the office of which he had established in Seventh street 
below Arch,) with his son-in-law, Mr. William Bradford, then a 
judge of the Supreme Court, had gone so far in advance of every 
thing as to begin the erection of his residence (afterwards occupied 
by Mr. T. Cadwalader,) at the southeast corner of Arch and 
Ninth. This however was the extreme west, and on his appoint- 
ment to the Attorney Generalship, Mr. Bradford, I have under- 
stood, found himself so remote from the daily walk of the public 
that he was obliged to come back to Market below Sixth. Mr. J. 
D. Sergeant, a lawyer of eminence, resided in a fine house which 
he had built in Arch above Sixth, near the site of the present 
Arch Street Theatre. 

In IV 93, and long after, Washington Square was the Potters' 
Field ; Independence Square was scarcely enclosed, and had at 
least one wooden structure on the Walnut street side of it ; Chest- 
nut street was not paved above Sixth, and from Sixth to Eighth, 
and from Walnut to Chestnut, the lots were almost entirely va- 
cant. Mr. Breck, in l)uilding about this time his house on the 
north side of Market, near Eighth, had the whole square to 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 261 

Cliestmit street open before liim. And except a large structure 
on tlie soutli side of Market, above Mntli, built by a Santa Cruz 
mercbant named Markoe, then so distant and lonely as to be 
known only as " Markoe's bouse," the ultima tlmle of a fashionable 
promenade, with another house, perhaps, built by Dunlap the 
printer, on the southeast corner of Twelfth and Market streets, 
this last-named street, which was then in advance of every street 
running westward, had not a residence of any note whatever upon 
it. In June, 1795, Mr. Bradford, the attorney general, who, with 
his brother-in-law, Mr. Wallace, then residing at Burlington, in 
New Jersey, were the owners of large lots about Arch and Mnth 
streets, writes to him in a letter which is among the papers of the 
Historical Society, " I should be glad if you would leave your 
classics and your greenhouse long enough to look after your 
interests in this city. I am anxious to confer with you. The city 
begins to make its way in this direction, but we own so much va 
cant ground hereabouts that we fairly arrest its progress, to our 
own injury. We must not hold too long, or we shall turn the tide 
of improvement elsewhere." An ancient house still standing on 
the east side of Eighth above Locust street, built in 1787, I 
think by a son of the eccentric Mrs. Duncan, known as the foun- 
dress of a votive church, and a yet finer structure which has long 
since given way to the residence of Mr. Henry D. Gilpin, at the 
southwest corner of Eleventh and Spruce, were in the city's 
presidential era regarded almost as country places. 

It is obvious from these details that Philadelphia, now grown 
to such vast dimensions, covered in that period but a small surface. 
With a few exceptions, its whole business, society and fashion was 
east of Sixth street, and much or most of it east of Fourth street. 
At the same time the style of the better houses was often more 
elegant than that now prevaihng. They were in better tasta 



262 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Their fronts were generaEy plain, and not made like so many of 
the ornamented, overcharged and heavy facades of the present 
day, only to show " how many tastes " their owners — " wanted." 
Their ground surface was generally much wider, the passage and 
stairways far more imposing, the grounds behind and around them 
nore spacious, free and airy, and the subject of much greater at- 
tention than is possible with the style of domestic architecture now 
prevalent ; with which, upon narrow lots, houses with ranges of 
rear buildings exclude at once the vital elements of light and air, 
and an enjoyment which, whenever attained, to a person of deli- 
cate sense seems hardly less vital, the fragrance and beauty of fo- 
liage and flowers. Any one who will look at the fine structures in 
Front below Pine street, now converted into seamen's lodging 
houses ; at those in Third from Spruce to Arch ; or at those in 
Chestnut below Fifth, now occupied by the fashionable shopkeep- 
ers, Bailey, Levy, Caldwell, and others, will see that in point of 
size, solidity, comfort, and effect, the better houses of that day 
were quite equal and in some cases much superior to the better 
houses of this. And these ancient houses, it must be remembered, 
• we see in a decayed and disfigured condition, mutilated of much 
of their embellishment, and, most of all, deprived by more recent 
structures of the grounds, both on the sides and in the rear, which 
once gave them peculiar dignity and elegance. These houses 
looked less like the rows of tall, slight, narrow and uniform ware- 
houses, in which commercial economy has attempted to unite the 
greatest product of brick with the least outlay of money and the 
exhibition of the most vicious taste. They told their own story 
to every one who saw them, and appeared to be, as they were, the 
homes of well-bred and unostentatious gentlemen, who jDlanted 
and built for themselves and their posterity. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 263 

II. 

In that day tliere were no locomotives, and the whole world 
did not in summer move in masses to the sea or mountain, there in 
masses to remain, till in masses they returned. Kural or suburban 
residences belonged to almost every man of any importance in 
Philadelphia. Mr. Burke considered that much of the misgovern- 
ment of France arose from the too hard work of the legislators. 
" In Enofland," he said, " we cannot work so hard as Frenchmen. 
-^ They w^ho always labor can have no true judgment. You never 
give yourselves time to cool. You can never plan the future by 
the past. You never go into the country^ "Who that looks at 
the mercantile life of Philadelphia or New York, doubts that the 
constant " stoppages," by which mild name failures and bankrupt- 
cies have come to be styled in the vocabulary which has usurped 
the language of drawing-rooms, are because men " work too hard " 
— never give themselves "time to cool," never "go into the 
country." 

Philadelphia was a centre round which, on every side but that 
of the Delaware, the rural seats of her merchants and gentry were 
studded. And they were matters of the greatest pride with them. 
On the north was the country house of one of the ancient judges 
of the Common Pleas. It seems to have been among his dearest 
earthly possessions. Hear how he speaks of it in his last will : 
" Whereas the said place has been some employment to me, in 
contriving, building and improvement thereon, and as the situation 
seems to carry prospect of advancement, although as the circum- 
stances of my family and estate stand at present, I cannot think it 
convenient and proper to give it to any one of my sons, — yet as 
it would be a pleasure to me while living to think that any sober, 
rehgious, and careful descendant of mine might enjoy it, I do 



264 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

hereby direct my executors to give to any sucli, my descendant, tlie 
preference, wlio may be desirous and able to purchase it." 

The comfortable seat of Mr. Eoberts, a quaker, on the Point 
road, with its avenues of pine trees, the admiration of every one : 
Rose Hill, the country residence of Mr. Boudinot, and the scene 
of the country hospitality of his distinguished daughter, Mrs. 
William Bradford ; Commodore Barry's, not far off, made interest- 
ing and memorable as the summer house of General Hamilton, who 
rented and occupied it during a part of his administrative life in 
Philadelphia; Cliveden, further west, the rural home of Chief 
Justice Chew, still in possession of his descendants; and Laurel 
Hill, since converted by speculators into a cemetery, which con- 
tinues to bear this name, but, at the time I am speaking of, the 
hospitable retreat during the warmer months of Mr. Joseph Sims, 
whose city life was illustrated with an elegance* never equalled in 
Philadelphia except by that of Mrs. Bingham, were all known for 
various charms to the more refined and distinguished society of the 
town. 

The beautiful place of Mr. Robert Morris was called The 
Hills. Part of it remains known to this generation as Lemon 
Hill, and part as Fairmount. It was laid out by Mr. Morris, who 
built a very large house upon it, with approaches from the rear, 
the principal front looking down upon the Schuylkill. It was 
ornamented with extensive greenhouses, and a fish pond, stocked 
with gold fish. It was from the breaking of the bank of this pond, 
and the escape into the SchuylkiU of the fijiny tribe who inhabited 
it, that gold fish have since been so frequently found in this river, 
and that we often hear it announced by their captors that the gold 
fish is a native of Pennsylvania waters. It is a denizen, but not a 

* I have tmderstood from good authority that the value of Mr. Sims's silver plate exceeded twentj 
thousand dollars. Is there any one in Philadelphia who now owns as much ? 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 265 

native. Tlie Hills became, in tlie conclusion of their public his- 
tory, interesting as the scene of Mr. Morris's confinement, when 
the barbarous laws which then allowed arrest and imprisonment 
for debt drove him, on the termination of his affairs, to seek shel- 
ter from ultimate proceedings in the privilege of the law which 
declares that " every man's house is his castle." Mr. Morris never 
spent much time here in his prosperous days. His town house was 
the scene of constant hospitalities. He withdrew to this country 
resort in March, 1797, to avoid the final process from the preceding 
judicial terms of September and December, 1796. The sheriff of 
Philadelphia, Mr. Baker, was supposed to have committed himself, 
and to have made his bail responsible, in allowing the defendant 
to go at large when it would have been easy to arrest him ; and 
some of those who had suffered most by Mr. Morris's transactions, 
or who bore their losses with least equanimity, determined to press 
their suit against this officer and his sureties. It therefore became 
very important for him to confer with Mr. Morris as to the means 
of his defence, and Mr. Morris, who with the feelings of an honor- 
able man was desirous of reheving him from a responsibility whick 
humanity alone had imposed upon him, received Mr. Baker at The 
Hills on condition that he would bring no process with him. 
Here, on a stormy day in March, the sheriff of Philadelphia and 
the great financier of the revolution were closeted together. Mr. 
Baker was faithful to his engagement and attempted no arrest. It 
is painful to add that Mr. Morris was finally ap23rehended by his 
own bail, upon a " bail-piece," the privilege of a man's house not 
being held to extend against bail. 

On the other side of the Schuylkill, about seven miles from 
town, was The Grange, the noble seat of Mr. Ross, an opulent 
merchant. Belmont, still known as Belmont Farm, and now a 

principal dairy of Philadelphia, was the ancient and aristocratic 
34 



266 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

residence of Judge Peters, and the best representative of an old 
fashioned English seat that ever existed near the city. Its noble 
trees had been planted by an earlier generation of the family, and 
even before the revolution were venerable for their age. This was 
a frequent and favorite resort of Washington, who in its pleasing 
shades and in the easy disposition and sprightly parts of its owner, 
and especially in that gentleman's agricultural tastes, enjoyed with 
a peculiar relish the little leisure which the affairs of state allowed 
him. Lower down the river, and nearly oj)posite to Fairmount, 
was' Solitude, the quiet home of one of the John Penns. It was 
a sweetly sequestered spot, the jDroperty of a very modest and 
retiring bachelor, whose literary tastes were here indulged in effu- 
sions which at a later period were given to the public, in London, 
in two volumes from the 'pvess of Bulmer. Theii* elegance of 
paper, typography, and engraving, have not, however, saved them 
from the fate which attends mediocrity of poetic genius. One of 
these volumes contains an engraving of Solitude. 

On the same side, further south, was Lansdowne, originally 
owned by another John Penn, much better known to the society 
of that day, and who, wiser than his celibitary kinsman, had hon- 
ored one of the Misses Allen with the proprietary name. Lans- 
downe was a fine estate in the time of Mr. Penn, who built upon 
it a noble mansion ; but its pre-eminence belonged to the e230ch of 
Washington's administration, when, on Mr. Penn's retii-ement to 
England, the entire proj)erty passed into the ownership of Mr. 
Bingham. Extensive imj)rovements of every kind were then made, 
as well in the principal edifice as in the greenhouses, stables, and 
other accessories. Lansdowne, while Philadelphia was the metrop- 
olis, was owned by Mrs. Bingham, and in extent and variety ap- 
proached more nearly to the seats of some of the English nobility 
than any other place perhaps in the country. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 267 

The Woodlands, now, like Laurel Hill, converted into a resting 
place for the dead, was a very charming spot. It extended down 
to the edge of the river, and the landscape has been frequently 
rej)resented by artists. It belonged to the Hamiltons, who styled 
themselves, somewhat pretentiously, though very appropriately, if 
I am correct in supposing that their earlier history was obscure, 
" The Hamilton family of the Woodlands and Bush Hill." Mr. 
Wilham Hamilton, who built the house and decorated the grounds, 
was a man of great taste in such matters, and embellished his 
beautiful mansion with such paintings and other works of art as 
were attainable in that day. His table was the frequent resort of 
artists and hon mvants of different kinds, of whom he entertained 
a good many at dinner, usually selecting Sunday as his day of in- 
dulo^ence. 

Of Grseme Park, frequented by the educated gentry, a few 
miles southwest of the city, I have written elsewhere,'^ in a me- 
moir of its proprietress, Mrs. Ferguson. Willington, the country 
residence of Mr. Thomas Willing, was upon what is now upper 
Broad street. A part of it is still covered with the trees planted 
there by its honored proprietor, and is the same property which, 
under the name of the Gratz estate, it was proposed in 1854 to 
convert into a public park. When, having named these places, 
we refer to the comfortable domicil of the ancient and excellent 
quaker family, the Pembertons, on the grounds now occupied by 
the Marine Hospital of the United States ; to Andalusia, about 
fourteen miles up the Delaware, thus named, in recognition of 
his large and honorable success in Spanish commerce, by Mr. 
Craig, its owner, from whom it passed to Mrs. Nicholas Biddle, I 
have mentioned the chief suburban residences of the time, though 
not at aU the numerous small and plainer places, like Mi\ Lard- 

* In my " Female Poets of America." 



268 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

ner's, further down the river, Mr. Ball's, at Kichmond, and many 
others, of no historical importance. They all, however, contributed 
to give a peculiar character to the society of that time. 

III. 

Some account should be given of the learned professions. At 
the head of the clergy stood Dr. "White, as he was commonly 
called, the well known first bishop of the Episcopal church in 
Pennsylvania. His ecclesiastical character has in recent times been 
greatly mistaken by both the extreme high and the extreme low 
divisions of his own denomination. He was what in England would 
be called a low churchman, as distinguished from the ultra school 
of Laud and Philpotts, but was very far removed from what have 
been called low churchmen in this country. Even in his day, when 
the Episcopal church was extremely feeble, and concessions, and 
compromises with other denominations, were matters to which the 
temptations were extreme. Bishop White defined what he regarded 
as the just limits of both, with a distinctness and precision which 
have made them their safest limits since. To him, and to his 
moderate views and conciliatory temper, we must ascribe the fact 
that while the eqclesiastical establishment of England, and the 
very name of bishop, had become odious in this country, the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in America departed so very little in 
form, while departing not at all in doctrine, from the established 
church in England. As a preacher, he was earnest and persuasive, 
but he seldom fulminated threats or judgments, and had very de- 
cided views of the limits of clerical duty. He shrunk from no 
proper responsibility, but he had too high a sense of courtesy, and 
too just a regard for even the most delicate of rights, to invade 
with freedom the atmosphere which every gentleman feels and ac- 
knowledges as a proper circle for himself and others. He was the 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 269 

man of Ms time for liis position. His prudence saved what the 
zeal of others would have lost, and in the midst of political and 
ecclesiastical difficulties of the most discouraging kind, he founded 
that establishment which has grown to be one of the most majes- 
tic structures of the religion of the republic. His character will 
grow larger as the perspective becomes more truly fixed by time, 
and if it were separated from religious parties, posterity would 
probably place his name after only the names of Washington, 
Marshall, and Hamilton. He belonged to the same order of men, 
differing but in the sphere of his action from either. 

The chief associate of BishojD White in the ministry was Dr. 
Robert Blackwell, a scholarly and sensible preacher of the English 
university cast. His sermons, of the homiletical kind, were like 
those of the higher class of the English clergy in the last century, 
calculated for educated and thoughtful hearers more than to 
arouse an indifferent or slumbering congregation. Possessing 
family rank, most agreeable manners, and a very large fortune, 
and being withal a man of unquestioned piety, and great propriety 
of life, he maintained a dignified position, and was extensively de- 
ferred to by an opulent and worldly class who would probably 
have deferred to no one else, less blessed with adventitious in- 
fluence. 

Dr. James Abercrombie of a somewhat later date — from 1794 
— made a conspicuous figure, and by many is still well remem- 
bered. Educated for the liberal professions, he had been engaged 
in commerce in Philadelphia ; and though in relinquishing a lucra- 
tive business for " the order of jioverty," as well as by the general 
course of his life, he had given unquestionable proofs of his ear- 
nestness, a certain fondness for convivial pleasure, and a high tone 
both of ecclesiastical and political sentiment, caused his sincerity 
to be sometimes doubted by persons who looked no deeper than 



270 THE REPUBLICAN COUKT. 

the surface of things. Following the occasional practice of the 
Eno'lish clergy of the last century — an example which Bishop 
White himself apparently did not disapprove — he had once or 
twice visited the theatre, on " the author's night," which caused 
scandal among many who every day of their lives may have done 
something much worse. Then his aversion to the infidel senti- 
ments suspected to be held by Mr. Jefterson, made him at a later 
period very reluctant to read the prayers for the President of the 
United States, prescribed in the Episcopal ritual ; and when in- 
formed by his diocesan that it was not a matter in the least discre- 
tionary with him, he comforted his federal friends with the 
assurance that he had not "prayed," but only "read" them. 
Not content with provoking the democrats, he had, on more than 
one occasion, involved himself in trouble with the aristocracy of 
his parish, by his strict and manly adherence to what he deemed 
his duty, prescribed by the canons and rubrics of his church. His 
celebration of the marriage of William Penn, an eccentric great- 
grandson of the founder of Pennsylvania, attracted a great deal 
of attention. This gentleman deemed it proper to address a 
woman celebrated for her beauty, but whose course of life, not 
less than her origin and associations, rendered it impossible for 
his friends of either sex to recognize her as his wife. Almost any 
other of the clergy would have refused, on grounds of prudential 
regard to their own interests, to perform the marriage office, under 
circumstances so peculiar ; but Dr. Abercrombie, having used in 
vain all suitable endeavors to persuade Mr. Penn from so Mai a 
connection, and finding that there was no legal or canonical im- 
pediment, married them, considering himself bound as a Christian 
mmister to do so. The excitement however became so great, and 
his popularity was so much in danger of being affected by it, that 
lie was obliged to defend himself in a pamphlet — " Documents 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 271, 

relative to tlie Celebration of a late Marriage " — to the principles 
of whicli Bishop White gave his entire approval. There can be 
no donbt, I think, that Dr. Abercrombie was right, and evinced 
that a sense of duty was the controlling influence of his conduct ; 
and the aj)proval of what he had done, by Bishop White, is a 
fact worth recording, as the clergy are often called on to act in cases 
like that here referred to, though not often in quite as strong ones. 

The three divines I have named were ministers of the united 
parishes of Christ church and St. Peter's, which were the aristo- 
cratic churches and congregations of the time. At the former the 
President with his aids attended with regularity on every Sunday 
morning.* 

At Christ church were the Aliens, Harrisons, Whites, McCalls, 
Swifts, Cadwalladers, Cunninghams, Tilghmans, and others of simi- 
lar consideration. St. Peter's, perhaps, as the newest parish, had 
the most fashionable congregation of the time. Here the vestry 
pro^dded pews for two of the secretaries of departments, and here 
the Binghams, Franceses, Blackwells, Willings, Powells, Chews, 
and Peterses, were to be seen on fine Sunday mornings when the 
time came to illustrate the newest fashions of the fall or spring.f 

* The history of the pew occupied here by Washington has not been always correctly given. It 
was larger than any which has since been in the church. Colonel White, the father of the bishop, 
owned a pew here, which on his death went to the bishop, and Mrs. Robert Morris, his sister. When 
the President came, the bishop and Mrs. Morris surrendered it, and went themselves to one which 
belonged to Mrs. Harrison, the bishop's wife's mother, and one behind Colonel White's original pew 
was included by the vestrymen, who placed the other pewholders each one pew lower down. This 
was occupied by the president during Washington's time. After his retirement the pews were re- 
stored to their former condition, and Bishop White resumed the one well known as his up to the 
alteration of the church in 1836. 

fl hope I am not uncharitable in my historic record. Bishop White used to recount a pleasant 
anecdote about Judge Peters. The judge had an excellent pew in the middle aisle, nearly under the 
organ, as that instrument had been originally placed, but he seldom occupied it, or went to church 
at alL Being a next door neighbor of the bishop's, and on terms of social familiarity with him, he 
deemed it proper to explain to the head of the church the cause of this unbecoming omission 
of his religious duties. " I should like, indeed," said the judge, '• to go regularly to church, but 
that confounded organ over my head gives me such a headache, that I can go only occasionally." 



272 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

A mono- tlie otlier Episcopal clergy were Dr. William Smith, 
provost of tlie University of Pennsylvania, a man of liabits a lit- 
tle open to observation, but of very fine literary and elocutionary 
powers, who was generally called upon when any occasion not par- 
ticularly religious required a sermon. His residence was at tbe 
southwest corner of Fourth and Arch streets, a fine house, still 
standing, of which the grounds ran southward to the college over 
which he presided. Dr. Eobert Andrews, a man of the purest 
piety and reputation, was also at a later date provost of the Uni- 

" Organ ? " said the bishop, " I don't think it will disturb yoa now : it was removed about three 
years since, to the other end of the church." The Rev. Dr. Abercrombie was not quite so passive as 
the bishop. A cui-ious letter to him from the Rev. Henry Vandyke, dated the twenty-third of Feb- 
ruary, 1796, presents but a melancholy picture of the piety of fashionable people in those times : 
and as well on its historical account, as for its honorable record of Dr. Abercrombie's fearless and 
faithful discharge of his clerical duty, I copy it nearly entire. It appears that Dr. Abercrombie had 
given offence to one of his parishioners, Mrs. Blackwell, a sister of Mr. Bingham, and closely re- 
lated to other influential persons in the parish, by some remarks lie had made to Mrs. Blackwell on 
the subject of Mr. Bingham's attendance at church ; and he now appeals to Mr. Vandyke, who had 
been present, for his recollection of what was said ; " The appeal you make to my recollection, re- 
specting the conversation that passed at Dr. BlackweU's between Mrs. Blackwell and yourself,' says 
Mr. Vandyke, in reply, " I remember well, and as deeply lament. You will, I dare say, remember 
the conversation that occurred between us upon our return from Dr. BlackweU's, when you so kindly 
accompanied me on my way home to my lodgings, and that I was strongly apprehensive you had gone 
too far with Mrs. Blackwell. You will remember that you justified the whole as being a point of duty, 
in your clerical character. I will, however, give you my best recollection on that unhappy subject. I 
call it unhappy, because, in its issue, I see it has given you pain. In the course of the evening, you 
know the conversation turned upon a sermon you had delivered a little before, in the church, which 
was said to be pointed at certain characters. You replied that your intention was to be pointed, that 
you designed it for the great ; that there were certain persons among them who belonged to the 
Episcopal church, and who seldom or never attended there, for whom you had, for several weeks be- 
fore the delivery of the sermon, carried it in your pocket ; that whenever a proper number should 
appear you had detcnnined to preach it ; that the sermon was not altogether so proper for the 
Sunday on which it was preached, as the one you had intended for the day, but finding a group of 
them, you could not pass it over, having so fair a shot. I do not by any means remember to have 
heard the assertion you mention respecting your having ^^ got all the Willing family together like a 
covey of partridges and determined to have a shot at tliem" in these very words recited; but you cer- 
tainly named Mr. Bingham, General Knox, Mr. Willing and Mrs. Powell, as being those who com- 
posed the group, and said that by then: being at church on that day you had a fair shot at them ; at 
least I really understood you so. Mrs. Blackwell, I confess, appeared very much hurt and affected 
at her brother's being mentioned, and said they would all be offended, and that she should not be 
surprised if they all left the two churches in which you officiated and went to St. Paul's ; that she 
was sure Mrs. Powell, in particulikr, would feel herself injured. You replied, that wliat you had 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 273 

versity. Dr. Samuel Pilmore was an evangelical cliurcliman, of 
some sort, wlio, witli Dr. Samuel Magaw, vice provost of tlie uni- 
versity, officiated at St. Paul's, of wMcli the congregation appea,rs 
to have Legun in a schism from Christ Church and St. Peter's, in 
which I believe it still continues. 

Dr. Ashbel Green, who, associated with Bishop White, was for 
eight years, from 1792, one of the chaplains of Congress, was de- 
servedly regarded as the head of the Presbyterian church in the 
metropolis. He was a man of commanding appearance, and, in 
his best days, was an effective and sj)lendid orator. His church, 
the second Presbyterian, was at the northwest corner of Arch and 
Second streets. Plere the vice president, Mr. Adams, though a Uni- 
tarian, regularly worshipped, occupying a seat in the pew of Mr. 
Boudinot, a large square enclosure at the head of the central aisle. 
Dr. Green's eminence and authority in the Presbyterian church 
were almost as great as Bishop White's in the Episcopal. In com- 
mon with the whole Presbyterian body throughout the country, he 
had been a staunch whig during the revolution, and had himself 
borne arms in the ranks, in one of the darkest periods of the war. 
Subsequently he became very intimately acquainted with some of 

done you considered to be no more than what duty required of you ; that so far from Mrs. Blackwell'a 
brother, Mr. Bingham, being offended, you had understood that he approbated the sermon ; and as 
to Mrs. Powell, you had said fuU as much to her upon another occasion at her own house. You 
then proceeded with firmness to say, that in consequence of open neglect by the great of our church 
(including the persons you had before named), of the chief duties of our religion, the churches were 
generally ill attended ; that they held pews which were seldom or ever occupied by them, by which 
means many serious Christians, who could get no pews at aU, were prevented from filling the churches ; 
that therefore it was that you had been so pointed ; and, to show that you really designed it in this 
way, when you came to that part of the sermon which was most particularly applied to that purpose, 
you had made a pause, and bowed towards them in their seats, so as that they might the more 
readily take the force of your observations. But you hoped it would not finally produce the effect Mrs. 
Blackwell suggested. If, however, even that should be the case, you did not doubt that others would 
gladly take their pews, and that the Episcopal churches, like those of other denominations, would 
more generally be filled. You forcibly observed that the churches of other denominations were well 
attended by the great who belonged to their communions, whereas, to the reproach of the Episcopal 
churches, those persons seldom or never attended at all." 

35 



274 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

the leading characters in the state, and in his church had at one 
period ahnost a pontifical supremacy. His voice was heard in its 
first General Assembly, in his old age he was conspicuous in what 
is known as the New School controversy, and his name is honor- 
ably identified with the leading measures which illustrated and 
shaped the policy of the Presbyterians for more than half a century. 
While he was chaplain, he noticed the thin attendance of mem- 
bers of Congress at prayers. Not more than one third were com- 
monly present. On one occasion he, expressed to a member, who 
was a professor of religion, his regret at this humiliating inatten- 
tion, which he was inclined to attribute to the prevalence of free 
thinking; but he was confounded by his friend's rej^ly: "Will 
you," said that gentleman, " tell me, on your veracity, whether our 
attendance is not as good as that of the delegates to your synod 
or General Assembly at the constituting prayer in the morning ? " 
He was compelled to admit the justice of the inquiry. Dr. Green 
resided in Chestnut street, in the house previously occujDied by 
Charles Thompson, secretary of the Congress of 1776. 

When he first removed to Philadelphia it was to become the 
colleague of Dr. James Sproat, a preacher highly esteemed in his 
prime, but at this period affected by the infirmities of age. 
During Washington's administration Dr. Green had successively 
two assistants, one of whom was Dr. John N. Abeel, afterward 
distinguished in the Dutch church in New York, and the other, 
Dr. Jacob J. Janeway. 

At the " Old Buttonwood," or Fii'st Presbyterian church, Dr. 
Ewing, a divine of eminence, and provost of the University of 
Pennsylvam'a, was the minister of his day. Until he had some per- 
sonal difficulty respecting his seminary, when he abandoned the 
Presbyterian, and attached himself to the E23iscopal church, Dr. 
Benjamin Eush was the most celebrated member of his cougrega- 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 275 

tion, wlilcli included however Mr. J. D. Sargeant, Colonel "Wil- 
liams (the first superintendent of the West Point Academy), and 
other most respectable persons. There was a third Presbyterian 
church under the charge of Dr. Duffield. 

Of the great German Lutheran church, in Cherry street, Dr. 
Helmuth, professor of the German language and literature in the 
university, was long the admired and popular minister. 

Besides these, the most noted church associations of the metrop- 
ohs in that time, there was the Baptist church, of which I have 
already spoken, and one German Calvinist, one Methodist, one 
Moravian, and one Eoman Catholic. In the Southern Liberties 
was the Swedes' church, probably the oldest place of pubhc wor- 
ship in Pennsylvania. The Jews had a synagogue, and the ancient 
Society of Friends was then perhaps stronger than it has been 
since. The African church, now so prominent among the ecclesi- 
astical bodies of the city, was of a somewhat later date."^ 



* Dr. Robert Blackwell, who lias already been referred to, was originally of Blackwell's Island, 
New York, which his great-grandfather had purchased, and had been a chaplain in the army. 
Being a man of very large fortune, fine personal appearance, and singularly pleasant temper and 
manners, he was a conspicuous character in society. Uniting to his other advantages, great dignity, 
he was much sought for on the occurrence of fashionable weddings. Slavery then existed in Penn- 
sylvania, and the blacks, who have always been observed to be extremely " aristocratic," hardly 
considered that they were married at all, unless the Doctor or Bishop White celebrated their nup- 
tials. Dr. Blackwell's registry of man-iages and baptisms, which I have seen, beside the mar- 
riage of Miss Margaret Allen to William Tilghman, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, and among the 
alliances of the Willings, Francises, Chews, and others, records the marriages of Sylvia to Csesar, 
Venus to Pompey, Dinah to Cufife, and others, the humblest in the world, to whom as to the 
greatest, the kingdom of heaven is promised. From the wide hall of his elegant house in Pine street 
below Third, with its rich chairs and sofas, in which he would array them, the black company would 
adjourn to his kitchen, where they were sure of some good wine and other hospitable cheer. In due 
time, too, Sylvia, Dinah, and Venus, were blessed with increase, who would of course be brought to be 
baptized at his house, and by nobody, of coui-se, but the Doctor who had married their papas and 
mammas. Notwithstanding his inexhaustible fund both of benignity and good-humor, this " black " 
business grew a little onerous ; and as he began to observe, it had no relief from the increasing 
numbers of the white clergy. The old gentleman bethought himself at last of a remedy, and 
having a very respectable negro fiimily servant, who had been brought up from a child in his house, 
and was always piously disposed, he inquired q£ him how he would like to take " holy orders." 



276 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

IV. 

The administratiou of justice — tlie great standing interest of 
society — may generally be taken as an exponent of society itself. 
In no country, at any time when the courts have been great, 
and the bar great, has the nation been other than great also. 
D'Aguesseau marks a splendid era in France, Eldon in England, 
and Marshall in America. 

The Declaration of Independence found just admitted at the 
Philadelphia bar, or preparing for it, several young men of fine 
parts and accomplishments. The older class, of the second " stra- 
tification " of the colonial bar, John Eoss, Mr. Francis, Mr. Wil- 
cocks, Mr. Galloway, and Andrew Allen, had either passed away 
or was doing so, and Mr. Bradford, Mr. Shippen, Edward Tilgh- 
man, Jared lugersoll, and William Rawle, were rising or about 
rising above the horizon. The last names, with those of William 
Lewis and Mr. Sitgreaves, of Easton, are those which adorned 
most brilliantly the bar of the capital during the first presidency. 
Mr. Joseph Reed had died in 1785, and though his powers as an 
advocate were very considerable, his passion was for political life^ 

Having considered the matter, the man felt convinced that as Dr. Blackwell had suggested it, he must 
be " truly called ; " and, putting on a white cravat and green spectacles, he entered in due form upon 
his divinity studies, for the uninternipted pursuit of which he was allowed a very comfortable room 
over the coach-house. Bishop White, whose offices were a great deal invoked in the same way, 
highly approved of Dr. Blackwell's ingenuity, and the Reverend Absalom Jones was in good time 
ordained by the bishop a. regular member of the Apostolic ministry. Jones had so constantly been 
present and assisting in a humbler capacity at his master's celebrations of marriage, that he was 
found, on the first experiment, quite aufait ; and those who witnessed his performance of the cere- 
mony, found it, in every respect, so " exactly like " Dr. Blackwell's own, that it was sometunes 
appealed to as conclusive evidence of the equality of the races. From this time, whenever invited to 
this duty by the blacks. Dr. Blackwell declined on the ground of professional etiquette. Jones, I 
ought to add, gave fuller proof of his ministry than many of his white brethren have since done. He 
was very useful among his people in Philadelphia, and is yet well remembered, as his memory 
also is yet greatly respected, by both whites and blacks, as the first rector of St. Thomas's African 
Episcopal church, in Fifth street below ^Yalnut. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 277 

and his interests were drawn in tlie unprofitable direction of Penn- 
sylvania local politics. Mr. Bradford undoubtedly occupied tlie 
fii'st position in his profession. I have referred to Mm in several 
places in this book. I cannot mention him too often. In mere 
law learning, he was probably surpassed by Mr. Edward Tilgh- 
man, who was one of the most thorough " common lawyers " that 
England or America ever produced ; and in what may be styled 
sledge hammer force of logic, he may have been inferior to Mr. 
Lewis ; but in Mr. Bradford there was a combination of powers, 
virtues and accomplishments, seldom found in perfect proportion, 
even when found in combination generally. There was an unusual 
"completeness of man." On the professional side, full attain- 
ments, fine intelligence, high natural eloquence, ready and patient 
capacities for business, with excellent business habits, made him 
distinguished.' Great prudential qualities, liberal civic and social 
dispositions, happy relations in domestic life, with delightful man- 
ners, and an engaging figure, made a beautiful portrait, merely 
personal. Expanded j)olitical views and sympathies, and the 
known devotion of his father, his father-in-law, and himself, to the 
cause of the people, from the beginning of the revolution, stopped 
the lips which would otherwise have reproached his federal poli- 
tics, and in the political sphere made him acceptable to all ; while 
the known purity and fidelity which pervaded his whole nature, 
and were conspicuous in all its elements, whether professional, 
personal, or of the state, made him as perfect a character as the 
history of any country presents. He seems never to have " made 
a mistake " in any act, great or small, of his life ; and the poets 
would have said that he " lived in the presence of all the gods." 
In addition to every personal and professional distinction, Wash- 
ington's appointment of him to the first law office of the govern- 
ment gave him, of course, the highest confidence of the public. 



278 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Mr. Edward Tilgliman lias been so well described by anotlier 
pen tliat I will not attempt to describe liim with my own. His 
family was an ancient English, one and came to Pennsylvania from 
Maryland. Mr. Tilghman' s own education in the law was chiefly 
in the Temple, and in the years 1'7'72 and IT 7 3 we find him an as- 
siduous attendant in the courts of Westminster Hall, taking notes 
of the arguments in chancery before Lord Apsley, and of such 
men as Wallace, Dunning, and Davenport, before Lord Mansfield 
and the judges of the King's Bench. 

" There are," says the writer of the memoir from which I get 
most of these facts, " two very different methods of acquii'ing a 
knowledge of the law of England, and by each of them men have 
succeeded in public estimation to an almost equal extent. One of 
them, which may be called the old way, is a methodical study of 
the general system of law, and of its grounds and reasons, be- 
ginning with the fundamental law of estates and tenures^ and pur- 
suing the derivative branches in logical succession, and the colla- 
teral subjects in due order, by which the student acquires a knowl- 
edge of principles that rule in all dej^artments of science, and 
learns to feel, as much as to know, what is in harmony with the 
system, and what is not. The other is to get an outline of the 
system by the aid of commentaries, and to fill it up by desultory 
reading of treatises and reports, according to the bent of the stu- 
dent, without muck shape or certainty in the knowledge so ac- 
quired, until it is given by investigations in the com-se of practice. 
A good deal of law may be put together by a facile or flexible 
man in the second of these modes, and the public are often satis- 
fied with it ; but the profession itself knows the first, by its fruits, 
to be the most effectual way of making a great lawyer. Edward 
Tilghman took the old way, and acquired in it not only great 
learning, l^ut the most accm^ate legal judgment of any man of his 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 279 

day, at tlie Ibar of wliicli lie was a member Upon questions 

wliicli to most men are perplexing at first, and continue to be sc 
until they have worked tbeir way to a conclusion by elaborate 
reasoning, lie seemed to possess an instinct, wliicli seized tbe true 
result before be bad taken time to jDrove it. This was no doubt 
tbe fruit of severe and regular training, by wbicb bis mind be- 
came so imbued with legal principles, tbat they unconsciously 
governed bis first impressions. 

" In tbat branch of tbe law wbicb demands tbe greatest sub- 
tlety of intellect as well as familiarity witb principles, tbe chapter 
of contingent remainders and executory devises, he had probably 
no superior any where. An eminent judge has said of him, ' that 
he never knew any man who had this branch of the law so much 
at his finger ends. With all others with whom he had had pro- 
fessional intercourse, it was the work of time and consideration to 
comprehend ; but lie took in with one glance all the beauties of 
the most obscure and difficult limitations. With him it was intui- 
tive ; and he could untie the knots of a contingent remainder or 
executory devise as familiarly as he could his garter.' When this 
can be justly said of a lawyer — and it was most justly of Ed^^ard 
Tilghman — nothing is wanting to convey to professional readers 
an adequate notion of the extent of his learning, and the grasp 
of his understanding ; for the doctrines upon these subjects are 
the higher mathematics of the law, and the attainment of them 
by any one impHes that the whole domain lies at his feet. Mr. 
Tilghman was also an advocate of great powers — a master of 
every question in his causes — a wary tactician in the management 
of them — highly accompHshed in language — a faultless logi- 
cian — a man of the purest integrity and of the brightest honor 
— fluent without the least volubility — concise to a degree that 
left every one's patience and attention unimpaired — and per- 



280 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

spicuous to almost the lowest order of understandings, while lie was 
dealing with almost the highest topics, — how conld snch qualities 
as these fail to give him a ready acceptance with Ijoth courts and 
juries, and to make him the bulwark of any cause which his judg- 
ment approved ? — An invincible aversion to authorship and to 
public office, prevented this great lawyer from being known 
as he ought to have been, beyond the limits of his own country. 
He has probably left nothing professional behind him but his 
opinions upon cases, now in various hands, and difficult to collect, 
but which, if collected and published, would place him upon the 
same elevation with Dulaney of Maryland, or Fearne, the author 
of the work in which he most delighted. The Chief Justiceship 
of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania was offered to him by 
Governor McKean, upon the death of Chief Justice Shij^pen, but 
he declined it, and recommended for the appointment his kinsman, 
William Tilghman, who so much adorned that station by his 
learning and virtues. — It is instructive to record, that the stern 
acquirements and labors of this eminent man never displaced the 
smiles of benevolence from his countenance, nor put the least 
weight upon his ever-buoyant spirit. His wit was as playful and 
harmless, and almost as bright as heat lightning upon a summer's 
evening. It always lit up the edges of the clouds of controversy 
that surround the bar, and sometimes dispersed the darkest and 
angriest. A more frank, honorable, and gentlemanly practitioner 
of the law, and one more kind, communicative and condescending 
to the young students and members of the bar, never lived." 
Horace Binney, thirty years his junior, was willing to record of 
himself, that he " regarded it as his greatest good fortune to have 
been admitted to the familiar intimacy of Edward Tilghman, and 
to have enjoyed not only instruction from his learning and wis- 
dom, but an example of life in his cheerfulness and serenity, dm*- 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 281 

rino" the vicissitudes of health and fortune which chequered his 

o -^ 

declining years." 

From the same pen we have a sketch of Mr. Ingersoll, who, 
like Mr. Tilghman, had been^ in part at least, educated in London, 
and who after his return home enjoyed, for many years an extei> 
sive practice. " It may not be known to the present age," says 
the eulogist of Mr. Ingersoll, " but it is an indisputable fact, he 
had almost two distinct natures, of different qualities, though 
both of them excellent : his nature in reflection, and his nature in 
action. In reflection he was, or appeared to be, rather slow, uncer- 
tain, deliberate — poising and balancing thought against thought, 
and authority against authority, as if he did not wish to approach 
the conclusion; and the consequence of it, I believe, was, that 
while he was generally and for the most part right, if he ever was 
otherwise, it was because the truth of the conclusion was hurt by 
the slowness of the process. This was one nature. But when he 
came into action, he was the most clear, decided, bold, acute, far- 
sighted man, whom I have ever seen in my life, as it regarded all 
the purposes of his cause; and he sprang to his conclusion in- 
stantly and fearlessly, as if he came to it by inspiration. In both 
of these natures, however different in their character, he was a 
fine example to the students in his office, whom he permitted to 
Imow him, and to trace, as it were, the steps of his mind even in 
its coldest operations ; and often did we hear him, through the 
glass door of his office on the other side of the way, treading his 
regular steps across the floor, and soliloquizing the points of an 
opinion or a cause, for the purpose of giving himself the stimulus 
which he felt that he requii'ed. When he got before a jury, he 
was the most dangerous adversary that any gentleman could meet. 
In my perhaps partial opinion, he was the ablest advocate of the 

bar before a jury, when he was in his prime and vigor, whether 
36 



282 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

his cause was good or bad ; aud before the court also, if liis cause 
was good, or j^robably so." 

Mr. John Dickenson Sergeant deserves notice for merits which 
were all his own, and still more so as the father of a son who 
added new and much greater honor to his name, the late Mr. John 
Sergeant. The elder Mr. Sergeant did not belong to the "Washing- 
ton school of politicians ; he was what was known as an anti-fed- 
eralist, or democrat. The party was then as respectable as it is 
no\v, but it had not the advantage which it has had almost ever 
since, of controlling all the offices of the country. It was then a 
proscribed party. Few who had the manners and associations of 
gentlemen belonged to it. Mr. Sergeant however was an honorable 
man, and he was held in deserved esteem both for his abilities and 
his integrity. He had been attorney general of the state. His 
death, in 1793, was regarded as a loss to the city and to his pro- 
fession. 

Of Mr. Rawle we have no sufficient record, and as he well de- 
served the best, it is to be regretted that we have not. In the 
vigor of his powers and the height of his fame he approached, I 
have often supposed, more nearly to Mr. Bradford than he did to 
either of the other eminent lawyers I have described. He had 
less genius than Mr. Bradford, and their characters were marked by 
such important differences as would naturally be found in men, one 
of whom had been largely bred in the camp, and the other in the 
quietism of the ■ community of Friends. But in the purity and 
gentleness of their natures, in their instinctive delicacy and good- 
ness, as well as in their habits of business, some resemblance might 
perhaps be traced. Mr. Rawle's family was one of the best, in 
most of its lines, in Pennsylvania, and was an ancient one in En- 
gland. His own legal education had been chiefly in the Temple, 
and on his return home in 1783 he rose by very fair degrees to 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 283 

extensive engagements in the best description of commercial and 
otlier practice. In July, 1791, he received from President Wasli- 
ington the office of District Attorney of Pennsylvania, and he 
prosecuted in behalf of the country the offenders against the au- 
thority of the federal government in 1^94: and 1798. Though 
having little taste for political life, he belonged to the party of 
which Washington was the head, and was always a faithful adhe- 
rent -to its principles. He survived most or all of his professional 
contemporaries, and near the close of his career, when he had with- 
drawn almost entirely from connection with the courts, his excel- 
lent legal judgment, his thorough- acquaintance with both the 
statutory and common law of England and Pennsylvania, is proved 
by what is known in Pennsylvania as the Revised Code, a work 
for which, without disparagement of his coadjutors, it may proba- 
bly be said that the state is chiefly indebted to his pen. 

I have not mentioned Mr. Alexander James Dallas, althous^h 
in connection with his Reports his name belongs to the bar of this 
period. His practice, I presume, was considerable, but he did not 
belong to the school of Washington, nor to that of Washington's 
friends. His life was so much engrossed with politics that his 
character and position might be regarded more appropriately in 
the exhibition of another class of persons. 

Mr. Samuel Sitgreaves was of Easton, but practised at the bar 
of Philadelphia, in which city he was compelled to ]3ass much of 
his time as a senator. I have not the means of estimating his pro- 
fessional abilities, but they must have been of a high order. His 
practice was considerable, and he enjoyed unequaled reputation in 
the district in which he resided, the northeast of the state. He 
was a man of elegant appearance and manners, and of very lofty 
pretension and carriage. He had been much in foreign countries, 
where he was admired for his presence and addi-ess. A few letters 



284 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

of his whicli 1 have seen prove that his literary accomplishments 
were hio-hly res23ectable. He was, with Mr. James Ross, a leader 
of the federal party, and the regard in which he was held by that 
party, unequaled by any which has ever existed in any country for 
the intelligence and purity of its principal characters is a sufficient 
menjorial of his name. 

Of Mr. William Lewis I am unable to give many particulars. 
He began the study of law late in life, and was probably never 
learned in books. He was of that class of men who need but lit- 
tle such education. He came, I think, from the country, and re- 
tained throughout his Hfe many habits and distinctions which, 
though common at the bars of the cities in our own day, did not 
then belong to the bar of Philadelphia. He had however great 
abilities as a lawyer, and as a legal dialectician, I infer, was second 
to none of his contemporaries. 

In these short notices I have confined myself strictly to the bar 
of the metropolis. But the finest legal intelligence of the country 
was also displayed here. Hamilton, while residing in Philadel- 
phia, argued some of his greatest cases here. The world knows 
and admires him as a soldier, a financier, and a statesman, but those 
best able to speak of him as a lawyer have declared that his fame 
in this capacity was not less splendid than that to which he rose 
in other spheres. " That accomplished lawyer," says Chancellor 
Kent, " showed by his precepts and practice the value to be 
placed on the decisions of Lord Mansfield. He was well ac- 
quainted with the productions of Vahn and Emerigon ; and if he 
was not truly one of the founders of this state, he may at least be 
considered as amons: the earliest of those who recommended these 
authors to the notice of the profession, and rendered the study 
and citation of them popular and familiar. His arguments on 
commercial, as well as on other questions were remarkable for 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 285 

freedom and energy, and lie was eminently distinguislied for ex- 
hausting every subject wMcli lie discussed and leaving no argu- 
ment or objection on tlie adverse side unnoticed and unanswered. 
He traced doctrines to tlieir source, or j)robed them to their foun- 
dations, and at the same time paid the highest deference and re- 
spect to sound authority. The reported cases do no kind of jus- 
tice to his close and accurate logic ; to his powerful and compre- 
hensive intellect ; to the extent of his knowledge, or the eloquence 
of his illustrations. We may truly apply to the efforts of his 
mind, the remark of Mr. Justice BuUer, in reference to the judi- 
cial opinions of another kindi'ed genius, that 'principles were 
stated, reasoned upon, enlarged and explained, until those who 
heard him were lost in admiration at the strength and stretch of 
the human understanding.' " 

V. 

Of the prominent representatives of the medical profession in 
the capital during the presidency of Washington, it is probable 
that Dr. Rush will be expected to be first presented. His name , 
undoubtedly will have a jiistoric and poj)ular distinction when 
others will have no fame beyond the halls of science, and in them 
be confined, in part, to the region where they themselves were 
known. Medical history also will revert to this era as the one in 
which the principal evidences of Dr. Rush's zeal and abilities are 
found : the eras of those terrible fevers which appeared, in inter- 
vals, at the seat of government, near the close of the last century. 
And his literary qualities were so excellent, his powers of narra- 
tion and description so great, that his own records of those scenes 
will long continue to give him fame, and to excite an interest in 
whatever concerns his memory. 

Although the chief medical theory — that of the unity of hu- 



286 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

man disease — to wliicli his capacities were devoted, was, no doubt, 
but a specious one, and is now exploded, and tliougli his writings, 
voluminous as they are, have little authority in medical science, it 
is almost impossible to believe that his practice, in at least the mid- 
dle years of his professional life, could have been essentially bad. 
His manners were insinuating and delightful, his ingenuity unu- 
sually great, his devotion to his classes and to all whom he could 
enlist as the advocates of his fame, constant, polite, and adroit. 
But no power of making the worse appear the better side, no ef- 
forts for controlling those whose voices and whose activity are 
used to create public opinion, could, I think, of themselves have 
given to Dr. Rush the success in his profession which he unques- 
tionably at one period enjoyed. His methods of treating the great 
fevers of his time, as much as they were condemned by some prac- 
titioners then, and as bad as they have been found by many prac- 
titioners since, must have had a wide basis of truth and api^lica- 
tion. That his favorite remedies were applied even then indis- 
criminately and with too much reliance on their efficacy, that his 
" heroic practice " may have sometimes killed when another's " ars 
expectandi " might have saved, may be admitted without affect- 
ing our main position. But, uninfluenced by the dogmas .of the 
schools, I cannot question that for his day, or for that part of his 
day of which he bore the heat and burden, his practice was in 
the main judicious. That he himself was fond of applying it 
too long, and of over applying it, and so discredited it ; that he 
maintained it too inflexibly wherein it was right, and too long 
wherein it was erroneous, should not perhaj)s bring reproach of 
his views. Those minds are rare in which, with deeply settled 
convictions, such as become principles, much capacity exists for 
receiving new impressions, or for a23plying doctrines to new con- 
ditions. This was eminently true of Dr. Rush, from an origi- 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 287 

nal love of theory, and from the strongest personal zeal and affec 
tion for every thing which originated with or concerned himself. 

Much of Dr. Rush's fame which the world supposes to he pro- 
fessional, arises from his connection with our great poHtical actors 
and actions. Though not a member of Congress on the fourth of 
July, lYYG, his name is found attached to the charter of our 
independence, and he felt a j)rofound interest in the conduct of the 
revolution. He was conspicuous, also, in most other public ajffairs 
which were agitated in Philadelphia, whether religious, literary, 
or social ; and as a lecturer or popular writer he possessed a charm 
of style rarely equaled. This, with his extensive relations with men 
of learning, his great medical practice, his remarkable powers of 
address and conversation, and the devotion he inspired from nearly 
every one who was his friend at all, made him what he must be 
confessed to have been, a marked character while Philadelphia 
was the seat of government ; but it would be a violation of truth, 
and an injustice to those men who were the friends of Washing- 
ton, and of whom Washington was the friend, to include Dr. Eush 
in the number. In war and peace he was one of the chief's ene- 
mies, and after the twentieth of March, 1TT8, Washington had no 
conjfidence whatever in his friendly professions. The fact of the 
President's disregard of a man whose talents were so considerable 
was noted by some observers in that day ; the reasons of it are 
better understood in this. 

William ShippcB was now in the height of his professional 
distinction. He had been for several years Director General of 
the Medical Department of the army, and was endeared to the 
President not only by trials which in the war they had shared to- 
gether, but was especially so, it may be believed, by the fact that 
in the darkest hour of the revolutionary struggle, that of Con- 
way's cabal, he defended with success his professional reputation 



,288 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

against wliat WasMngton calk " charges of a very heinous nature," 
by the same individual who almost on the same day spoke of the 
commander-in-chief as " no general," and quoted with admiration 
the declaration of Conway that " a great and good God hath de- 
creed America to be free, or the general, and weak counsellors, 
would have ruined her long ago." Shippen's reputation was higher 
as a surgeon than as a thera23eutist. While in Europe, where he 
spent five years, he had been a pupil of Sir John Hunter, and a 
resident in his family, and almost an inhabitant of the theatre of 
William Hunter, and his affinities therefore were naturally more 
intimate with surgery than with medicine. Unlike Dr. Eush, he 
wrote but little, and we have not much in the way of paj)ers to 
prove his abilities ; but we have ample traditionary evidence, and 
the direct testimony of his associate. Dr. Wistar, the best of judges 
and the best of witnesses, that they were very high. Shippen 
was a man of fine appearance and fine manners ; his elocution was 
admired by every body, when Duche and Whitfield had left the 
impressions of models never since surjDassed. His social connec- 
tions were all influential, and he was regarded in the period of 
Washington's administration with all the interest which could be- 
long to one who had done a special honor to his country ; for Dr. 
Morgan had died in 1T89, and Shippen now remained the only 
surviving founder of the medical school of Pennsylvania, the first 
established medical college in America, of which he had been not 
only a father, from 1T65, the year of its creation, but one of the 
most interested and efficient professors ; and by his fine powers as 
a demonstrator, and his happy style as a lecturer, had led it from 
a humble beginning, with ten pupils, to the eminence it occupied in 
the closing ten years of the last century, when its benches were 
crowded by students whose names were counted by hundreds. \ 
Dr. Wistar was ar character whom it is delightful to remember 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 289 

It is praise enougli to say of Mm that lie received tlie eulogies of 
William Tilgliman. The harmony of his parts, the placid and 
benignant cast of his tempers, might lead us to suppose that Dr 
Wistar's reputation was chiefly a moral one, and to doubt whethei 
his scientific abilities and attainments had been of the best order 
We know however by most convincing proofs that they were so 
He had been a thorouo;h student in the foreisin universities, where 
he passed more than three years, and on his return to America had 
filled with unusual credit the chair of the professorship of chem- 
istry in the college of Philadelphia. He was a mineralogist also. 
But it was as an anatomist that his fame was supreme. His trea- 
tise on anatomy has been considered so complete and accurate a 
work that it is still extensively used as a text book in the colleges, 
and it has quite recently received new distinction in the editorial 
labors of so fine an anatomist as Dr. Pancoast. Dr. Wistar was 
not actively engaged in the revolution, but he had been on the 
field of Germantown, and his humanity and skill were alike con- 
spicuous in the hospitals there. He belonged by his connections 
to the Society of Friends, though he never conformed strictly to 
their discipline. This would have kept him from celebrity in the 
fashionable world of that day ; but his reputation as a man of 
science carried him into every sphere. 

Dr. Wistar's social powers were eminent. On the Saturday 
evening of each week his house was the resort, not of those mixed 
crowds of men of every kind of rank, with all sorts and no sorts 
of education, — traders, physicians, lawyers, litterateurs, and bon 
vivants — who, at " Wistar Parties," originally established in his 
honor, are now called together, to eat, drink, and go home ; but 
of gentlemen of all the Hberal professions, scholars, and such 
strangers of distinction as happened at the time to be visitors or 

temporary residents in the city. It was of meetings like these 
37 



290 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

that Chief Justice Tilgliman says : " Without intending it, our la 
mented friend would take the lead, and so interesting were his 
anecdotes, and so just his remarks, that, drawing close to the dying 
embers we often forgot the lapse of time until warned by the un- 
welcome clock that we had entered on another day." 

Of Kuhn, Griffitts, Hutchinson, Dunlap, and other practition- 
ers of the time we are describing, I need not speak at large ; but 
of Philip Syng Physic, who filled the most illustrious career in 
medicine that this country has ever known, I may remark, that 
while his full fame belongs to a later date, he had even in the time 
of Washington begun to attract the attention of society, by dis- 
plays of the promise which was afterwards so splendidly fulfilled. 

Such was the medical distinction of our ejDOch. The college 
of Philadelphia was in 1789 in the height of its renown. Dr. 
Shippen was its professor of anatomy and surgery ; Push was in 
the chair of the theory and practice of medicine ; Wistar was 
filling its professorship of chemistry and the institutes of medi- 
cine ; and Dr. Griffitts that of materia medica and pharmacy. 
Indeed the course of instruction in that day was more complete 
than it has been in ours, for it had a separate chair of botany and 
natural history, of which the accomplished occuj)ant was Dr. Bar- 
ton, the first American who gave his country an elementary work 
on the science of vegetable nature. 

" This," says Professor Wood, the historian of that college, 
" may be regarded as one of the most interesting eras in the his- 
tory of the medical school. It was now that Dr. Push took that 
station which his genius and eloquence afterwards rendered so il- 
lustrious. It was now that Barton found a field for the display of 
acquirements unrivalled among his contemporary countrymen ; it 
was now moreover that Wistar entered within these walls, which 
the fame of his talents as a teacher crowded with pujiils, and 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 291 

sibout wMcli his warm benevolence of lieart and deliglitful ur- 
banity of manners combined to throw a charm which, amidst all 
subsequent changes, retained a strong influence over all who had 
the good fortune, to listen to his instructions." 

Distinguished as Philadelphia has been for a hundred years as 
the principal seat of medical science on this continent, was it ever 
so distinguished, so justly honored, for illustrious men in this de- 
partment, as it was in the era of the administration of Wash- 
ington ? 

— VI, 

The women of Philadelphia were already distinguished for those 
attractions which have been celebrated so much and so justly in 
more recent times. For beauty, grace, and intelligence, the witty 
Duke de Lauzun confessed that he knew not where they were 
surpassed ; and the gay Marquis de Chastellux became enthusiastic 
when describing the dames and demoiselles who gave its life to 
society there at the close of the war. At the end of seven years, 
when Philadelphia was made again the centre of affairs, it was 
found that her coteries had lost in the advance of material interests 
none of their refinement or spirit, and that whatever rivalry was 
threatened in commercial and industrial prosperity, none could be 
apprehended in social elegance. 

Preeminent at this period in rank and in whatever adds an em- 
bellishment to the highest station, was Mrs. Ajme Bingham, daugh- 
ter of Mr. Thomas Willing and wife of Mr. William Bingham, who 
soon after was created one of the representatives of Pennsylvania 
in the national senate. Distinguished among the women of the 
presidential court, Mrs. Bingham was elevated in some respects 
above them all, in being the centre of a court which was all her 
own. Her style, her beauty, her influence, the elegance of her 
house, the taste and aristocratic distinction of the assemblages which 



292 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

frequently adorned it, liave become as houseliold words in tlie city 
whicli was the scene of them, and indeed are historical in the an- 
nals of the higher social life of America. Considering that she 
died before she was thirty-seven years of age, that she had passed 
much of her married life abroad, and that the close of it was away 
from home, and after illness had withdrawn her for some time from 
the sphere in which she shone, we should under ordinary circum- 
stances find it difficult to account for the great traditionary reputa- 
tion of her distinction and influence, which is found in Philadelphia 
as fresh almost at the end of half a century as it was at its begin- 
ning. Her reputation was, in truth, the combined result of several 
causes. Her beauty was splendid. Her figure, which was some- 
what above the middle size, was well made. Her carriage was light 
and elegant, while ever marked by dignity and au\ Her manners 
were a gift. Sprightly, easy, winning, are terms which describe the 
manners of many women, but while truly describing hers, they 
would describe them imperfectly, unless they gave the idea that 
they won from all who knew her a special measm^e of personal in- 
terest and relation. Receiving neither service nor the promise of 
it, every one who left her yet felt personally flattered and obliged ; 
really exclusive in her associates, she gave to none the slightest 
offence; with great social ambition at the basis of her charac- 
ter, no aspirant for the eminence of fashion felt that she was 
thwarting her aims ; and with advantages, personal, social, and ex- 
ternal, such as hardly ever fail to excite envy from her sex, such 
was her easy and happy tm-n of feeling, and such the fortunate 
cast of her natural manners, that she seemed never to excite the sting 
of unkindness nor so much as awaken its slumber or repose. Her 
entertainments were distinguished not more for their superior style 
and frequency than for the happy and discreet selection of her 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 293 

guests, and lier own costume abroad was always marked "by tliat 
propriety and grace whicli, wliile uniting costliness, rarity and an 
exquisite refinement, subordinates tbe effect of tbem in a way wHch 
never invites comparisons. In all this she had had the advantage 
of a wise and courtly and affectionate education. She owed much, 
however, to the command of great wealth, and to a combination 
of friendly and family advantages which her wealth enabled her 
to illustrate and profit by. 

In her father's house we may believe that Mrs. Bingham receiv- 
ed the best instruction which the time and country afforded. Mr. 
Willing had himself been carefully educated at Bath, in England, 
and although contemplating probably the career of a merchant, 
had been liberally trained in classical studies, and had pursued for 
some time a regular course of legal reading as a student in the 
Temple. From girlhood the beauty of this daughter had been con- 
spicuous, and on the twenty-sixth of October, 1T80, being then just 
sixteen years old, she was married by the Reverend William White, 
one of the chaplains to the Congress, and afterwards the first bishop 
of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania, to Mr. Wil* 
liam Bingham, of Philadelphia, who possessed larger estates than 
any other person in the colony. As a child she had been much at 
home in the family of Washington. Mr. Willing and his associate 
in commerce, Robert Morris, as well as his brother-in-law, Mr. Clymer, 
were all members of the Congress of I'TTG. To the great credit 
and well known patriotism of the house of Willing and Morris the 
country owed its extrication from those trying pecuniary embarrass- 
ments so familiar to the readers of our revolutionary history. The 
character of Mr. Willing was in many respects not unlike that of 
Washington, and in the discretion of his conduct, the fidelity of his 
professions, and the great influence, both private and public, which 



294 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

belonged to liim, tlie destined leader was certain to find tlie elements 
of an affinity by wliicli they would be united in the closest manner. 
During a part of the war the head-quarters of. the General were 
in a house built on Mr. Willing's estate for his son-in-law, Colo- 
nel Byrd, of Westover, in Virginia, and only sejDarated from his own 
by the intervening grounds of his garden. In this way, as well as 
from her domestic relations and immediate connections with the 
families of Clymer, Francis, Powell, McCall, Ship23en, and others, 
forming in that day, with the Chews, Aliens, and two or three 
more, a large portion of the only society with which the Chief was 
intimate, Miss Willing, even as a young gii'l, was very frequently 
an object of Washington's notice and regard. Another intimate 
friend of the family, from abroad, was John Jay, who at the time 
of Miss Willing's marriage was in Spain, and who soon after wrote 
to Mr. Bingham, to congratulate him on his happiness, " from the 
most delicate of all connections, with one of the most lovely of her 
sex. As I am always pleased to find those happy whom I think 
deserve to be so," he says, " it gave me very sensible satisfaction to 
hear that you had both made so judicious a choice, notwithstand- 
ing the veil which that sweet fascinating passion often draws over 
our eyes and understanding." 

Soon after the conclusion of the war, that is, in 1T84, Mrs. Bing- 
ham with her husband went to Europe. She spent some time in 
France, and was presented at the court of Louis XVI., where she 
attracted particular attention The eyes of cavaliers might well 
be turned to such a representative of a nation whose successful con- 
test for independence had won the admiration of the world. Mr. 
Adams and his family were then residing in Paris, and in the diary 
of Miss Adams, for the twenty-sixth of October, IT 84, it is recorded 
that the Adamses that day dined with the Binghams at the Hotel 
Muscovy. " Mrs. Bingham," says the young lady, " gains my love 




MIS-^oWIimiLEAm IBUM^IElAOiLq, 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 295 

and admiration more and more every time I see lier ; slie is possess- 
ed of greater ease and politeness in lier behavior than any person I 
have met." Two or three months afterward, describing a dinner 
of Lafyette's, Mrs. Bingham was again encountered : " She was, as 
ever, engaging ; her dress was of black velvet, with pink satin sleeves 
and stomacher, a pink satin petticoat, and over it a skirt of white 
crape, spotted all over with gray fur — the sides of the gown open 
^,n front, and the bottom of the coat trimmed with paste. It was 
superb, and the gi*acefulness of the person made it appear to pecn 
liar advantage." 

Her next sojourn was at the Hague, which was stm an impor- 
tant seat of diplomacy. From the Hague she passed into England, 
where her elegance and beauty attracted more admiration than per 
haps was willingly expressed by the old court of George IH. 

That the American women surpass those of any other country 
in beauty has long been conceded. Nothing struck the gallant 
French noblemen, who came here during the war, so much as the 
charms of the fairer sex, in almost every class of society. Young 
John Quincy Adams, soon after his retm^n from Eussia, in 1T85, 
wrote to his sister, " Since I came home I am grown more indiffer- 
ent to beauty than I ever was ; it is so common here that it loses 
half its value." His mother very nearly agreed with him on this 
subject. "Notwithstanding the English boast so much of their 
beauties," she says, " I do not think they have really so much of it 
as you will find amongst the same proportion of people in America. 
It is true that their complexions are undoubtedly fairer than the 
French, and in general their figures are good. Of this they make 
the best ; but I have not seen a lady in England who can bear a 
comparison with Mi's. Bingham, Mrs. Piatt, or a Miss Hamilton, 
who is a Philadelphia young lady. Among the most celebrated 
of theu' beauties stands the Duchess of Devonshire, who is mascu- 



296 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

line in her appearance. Lady Salisbury is small and genteel, but 
her complexion is bad; and Lady Talbot is not a Mrs. Bingbam, 
wbo, taken altogether, is the finest woman I ever saw. The intel- 
ligence of her countenance, or rather, I ought to say, its animation, 
the elegance of her form, and the affability of her manners, convert 
you into admiration ; and one has only to lament too much dissipa- 
tion and frivolity of amusement, which have weaned her from her 
native country, and given her a passion and thirst after all the lux- 
uries of Europe. The finest English woman I have seen is the 
eldest daughter of Mr. Dana, brother to our Mr. Dana. He resides 
in the country, but was in London, with two of his daughters, when 
I first came here. I saw her first at Eanelagh. I was struck with 
her appearance, and endeavored to find who she was ; for she ap- 
peared like Calypso amongst her nymphs, dehcate and modest. 
She was easily known from the crowd, as a stranger. I had not 
long admired her before she was brought by her father and intro- 
duced to me, after which she made me a visit, with her sister, who 
was much out of health. At the same time that she has the best 
title of any English woman I have seen to the rank of a divinity, 
I would not have it forgotten that her father is an American, and, 
as he was remarkably handsome, no doubt she owes a large share 
of her beauty to him." 

In London the Adams family renewed their intimacy with the 
Binghams, and Miss Adams frequently alludes to her Philadelphia 
friend : " She is coming quite into fashion here, and is very much 
admired," she says. " The hairdresser who dresses us on court days 
inquired of mama whether she knew the lady ' so much talked of 
here from America, Mrs. Bingham.' He had heard of her from a 
lady who had seen her at Lord Duncan's. At last, speaking of Miss 
Hamilton, he said, with a twirl of his comb, " Well, it does not sig- 
nify, but the American ladies do beat the English all to nothing ! " 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. . 207 

On the fcwenty-fourtli of June, 1*787, Miss Adams, now Mrs. Wil- 
liam S. Smith, writes in her journal : " Mrs. Stewart is an agree- 
able woman. I think from the observation I have made upon those 
ladies from Philadelphia whom I have been acquainted with, that 
they are more easy in their manners, and discover a greater desire 
to render themselves acceptable, than the women of Boston, where 
education appears to be better, and they seem to be sensible of 
their consequence in society. I have seen some good specimens 
of their brilliancy, first in Mrs. Bingham, and now in Mrs. Stewart." 
Mrs. Bingham remained abroad about five years. She was 
every where caressed, and the immense wealth at her command 
enabled her to maintain a style of hfe without which beauty, ele- 
gance" or worth, stands every where in Europe, but in England* 
especially, only a slight chance of recognition. With her husband 
she had contemplated, before leaving home, the building of a resi- 
dence, on their return, which might illustrate their taste, wealth 
and hospitality. The domestic architecture of London and Paris 
was a subject of special study, and the mansion of the Duke of 
Manchester, in Manchester Square, London, was selected as the 
model of the contemplated structm'e in Philadelphia — the dimen- 
sions of the original being somewhat enlarged in the copy. Soon 
after they came back to America they built their palatial edifice, 
so well remembered by the present generation as " The Mansion 
House," in Third street above Spruce, which was unhappily de- 
stroyed a few years ago by fire. We have since had in 'New York 
and Philadelphia a few larger houses, but in neither city, it may 
be safely asserted, has there yet been any establishment distin- 
guished every way by taste so truly elegant, and by so marked an 

* The English sometimes refer in an unamiable way to the influence of the " almighty dol- 
lar " over our countrymen, as if not aware of the fact that in no other country is money so 
"almighty" as in England itself. 



298 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT. 

ail' of rank and opulence. Its widtli was spacious, its lieiglit not 
extended above a third story, and it stood perliaps forty feet from 
tlie ordinary line of the street, being approached by a cii'cular car- 
riao-e way of gravel, the access upon both ends of which opened by 
swino-ing gates of iron open tracery. A low wall, with an elegant 
course of baluster upon it, defended the immediate front, and 
connected the gates which gave admission. The grounds about 
the house, beautifully diversified with walks, statuary, shade, and 
parterres, covered not less than three acres. They extended the 
whole distance, three hundred and ninety-six feet, from Third to 
Fourth street, and along Fourth street two hundred and ninety-two 
feet from Spruce, to the lot subsequently bought, built upon, and 
occupied by the late Mr. John Sergeant. On Third street the line 
extended north toward the house of her father, as far as that of 
her uncle, Mr. Powell, afterwards of the late Mr. "William Eawle ; 
so that the whole square, from Willing's alley to Spruce street, 
along Fourth — filled now by fifty-four fine houses — was occupied 
only by the houses of her father, Mr. Thomas Willing, her aunt, 
Mrs. William Byrd, of Westover, another aunt, Mrs. Powell, and 
her own princely abode.* 

* Among Mrs. Bingham's admirers, in her girlhood, while she remained abroad, and to the 
end of her career, was Mr. Jefferson, who in one of his letters to her, written from Paris about a 
year after her return to Philadelphia, gives in his peculiarly lively and agreeable style a con- 
trast of foreign and American fashionable life. " I know, madam," he says, " that tlie twelve- 
month is not yet expired ; but it will be, nearly, before this will have the honor of being put 
into your hands. You are then engaged to tell me, truly and honestly, whether you do not fiad 
the tranquil pleasures of America preferable to the empty bustle of Paris. For to what does 
that bustle tend? At eleven o'clock it is day, c/tea maJawie. The curtains are drawn. Propped 
on bolsters and pillows, and her head scratched into a little order, the bulletins of the sick are 
read, and the billets of the well. She writes to some of her acquaintance, and receives the visits 
of others. If the morning is not very thronged, she is able to get out and hobble round the cage 
of the Palais Royal ; but she must hobble quickly, for the coiffeur's turn is come ; and a tremen 
dous turn it isl Happy, if he does not make her arrive when dinner is half over! The torpi 
tude of digestion a little passed, she flutters half an hour through the streets, by way of paying 
/isits, and then to the spectacles. These finished, another half hour is devoted to dodging ir 
and out of the doors of her very sincere friends, and away to supper. After supper, cards; and 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 299 

I have said tliat Mrs. Blngliani in some sort maintained a court 
of her own. Her family connection was numerous, of great influ- 
ence, and located generally about her, the south-eastern part being 
then the fashionable end of the town. The venerable abode of 
her cousin, Chief Justice Shippen, was on Fourth street, opposite 
to Willing's alley ; the house of another cousin, Mrs. Harrison, was 
also in Fourth street, opposite the Bingham mansion ; the seques- 
tered and stately home of her more remote kinsman, Mr. Archibald 
McCall, was at the north-east corner of Pine and Thu"d streets ; 
Mrs. Blackwell, her sister-in-law (the sister of her husband and the 
wife of the Keverend Dr. Eobert Blackwell, whose only daughter 
her brother George had married), lived in Pine street, below Thii'd ; 
her connection. Colonel Thomas Lloyd Moore, a very elegant mili- 
tary man of that time, whose only daughter another brother had 
married, was not far below, and M. Barbe Marbois,* who had mar- 
after cards, bed ; to rise at noon the next day, and to tread, like a mill-horse, the same trodden 
circle over again. Thus the days of life are consumed, one by one, without an object beyond 
the present moment ; ever flying from the ennui of that, yet carrying it -with us ; eternally in 
pursuit of happiness, which keeps eternally before us. If death or bankruptcy happen to trip 
us out of the circle, it is matter for the buzz of the evening, and is completely forgotten by the 
next morning. In America, on the other hand, the society of your husband, the fond cares for 
the children, the arrangements of the house, the improvements of the grounds, fill every moment 
with a healthy and an useful activity. Every exertion is encouraging, because to present amuse- 
ment it joins the promise of some future good. The intervals of leisure are filled by the society 
of real friends, whose affections are not thinned to cobweb by being spread over a thousand 
objects. Tliis is the picture, in the light it is presented to my mind ; now let me have it in yours. 
If we do not concur this year, we shall the next ; or if not then, in a year or two more. You 
see I am determined not to suppose myself mistaken. . . . The workmen of Paris are making 
rapid strides towards English perfection. Would you believe, that in the course of the last two 
years, they have learned even to surpass their London rivals in some articles ? Commission me 
to have you a phaeton made, and if it is not as much handsomer than a London one as that is 
than a fiacre, send it back to me. Shall I fill the box with caps, bonnets, &c. ? Not of my own 
choosing, but — I was going to say, of Mademoiselle Bertin's, forgetting for the moment that sho 
too is bankrupt. They shall be chosen then by whom you please ; or, if you are altogether non- 
plussed by her eclipse, we will call an Assemblee des Notables, to help you out of the difficulty, 
as is now the fashion. In short, honor me with your commands of any kind, and they shsU ba 
faithfully executed." 

* Ante, page 81 ; note. 



300 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

ried a sister of Colonel Moore, was in tlie immediate vicinity ; so 
tliat Mrs. Bingham had only to issue her commands to her own cir- 
cle of connections to have her halls jBilled with an assemblage every 
way fit to grace them. I have already mentioned the access to the 
house ; its entrance was not raised at all, as is the modern style, to 
a kind of second story, but it brought the visitor by a single step 
upon the wide pave of tesselated marble, which will be remem- 
bered even in the more recent history of " The Mansion House." 
Its self-supporting broad stairway of fine white marble — the first 
of that description, probably, ever known in America — leading to 
the second story, gave a truly Roman elegance to the passage. On 
the left hand, as the visitor entered, were parlors ; on the right, a 
room designed for a study ; and opposite, separated by a lateral 
hall, a hbrary. In the second story, on the south, were a drawing- 
room and card-rooms, the windows of which, looking down on an\ 
extensive conservatory, adjacent to the lower parlors on the same 
side, revealed a delicious prospect. Various and extensive domestic 
offices adjoined the house upon the west. Much of the furniture, in- 
cluding the carpets, which were remarkable for their elegant rich- 
ness, had been made in France. The halls were hung with pictures, 
of which the greater number had been selected in Italy f' and the 
library was well filled with the best authors of the day. Many 
remnants of this beautiful furniture are still preserved by Mrs. 
Bingham's relatives, and are sometimes displayed as illustrations of 
the truth that the taste of Philadelphia has not increased hi propor- 
tion to her wealth and population. 

In addition to this town establishment Mrs. Bingham possessed 
the elegant retreat of Lansdowne, on the west bank of the Schuyl- 
kill, formerly belonging to the Penns — a place which she laid out 

* A fine Magdalen, after Corregio, is now at Mayfield, near Philadelphia, the seat of Mr. G. 11 
rhomson, whose amiable and accomplished wife I believe is a niece of Mrs. Bingham's. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 301 

wttli great taste, and at wliicli slie passed her summers. At LotL. 
places, particularly at Lansdowne, "Washington was a frequent visi- 
tor. In botli she lived with an elegant hospitality. Her youth, 
beauty, rank, and wealth, with the frequency, variety, and tasteful 
richness of her entertainments, made her acquaintance highly de- 
sii-able ; and her husband's public character, as a member of the 
national Senate, her father's long and honorable career in the ser- 
vice of the country, her connexion. Major Jackson's, intimate asso- 
ciations as one of the private and confidential secretaries of the 
President, and her own residence in France, England, and oth- 
er parts of Europe, conspii-ed to draw around her a circle of 
men and women of the very first class, in rank, elegance, and ac- 
complishment. Philadelphia was now the metropolis ; all that the 
United States contained, illustrious in statesmanship, was assembled 
there, and as the capital of the country it was the residence as well 
of the several diplomatic representatives of Europe as of numerous 
truly eminent persons whom choice or vicissitudes had brought to- 
gether in the new empire, which was becoming a mystery and a 
wonder and was shattering by its noble example of liberty all the 
traditional despotisms of the worlds I have dwelt thus long and 
with such particularity upon the fame and circumstances of Mrs. 
Bingham, because she was unquestionably at the head of American 
society, because the style in which she lived illustrated the highest 
refinement and splendor known in the country, and because its 
striking contrast from the simple manner in which the President 
lived showed the utter profligacy of those political agitators who 
made the cry of an " anglo-monarchic aristocracy," composed of 
" the executive, the judiciary, and the officers of the government," 
a senseless, ridiculous and wicked means of organizing the elements 
of vulgar baseness throughout the republic against the faultless ad- 
ministration of Washington. 



302 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

For wealtli Mrs. Biugliam was tlie most distinguislied of her 
family ; but her mother, Mrs. Thomas Willing, was hardly less 
remarkable for beauty than herself, and indeed so much resembled 
her as to make it a question and almost a dispute among their 
friends whether the mother or the daughter was the most beauti- 
ful. A fine picture by Peale, yet in the possession of one of her 
descendants, renders this very easy to believe. Other members of 
the "Willing family, in different generations, then all living, were 
Mrs. Tench Francis, Mi's. Stirling, wife of Admiral Stirling, of 
Scotland, Mrs. Powell, a lady of large fortune and some literary 
pretensions, Mrs. Jackson, wife of Major William Jackson, Wash- 
ington's secretary, Mrs. Dolly Willing Francis, Mrs. Richard 
Peters, whom as Miss Abby Willing Louis Philippe is said very 
greatly to have admired, and Mrs. Clymer. 

Among these, as more especially connected with the court of 
Washington, it is proper to mention particularly Mrs. William Jack- 
son. This elegant woman, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Wil- 
lino-, was the second daughter of Mr. Thomas Willing, and a sister, 
therefore, of Mrs. Bingham. Though less beautiful than her elder 
sister, her person and countenance were highly engaging, and she 
was remarkable from girlhood for the sprightliuess and grace of 
both her mind and manners. In her earlier years she had of course 
seen much of Washington at her father's house, and she had some- 
times been a familiar guest at the table of Mrs. Bingham, where, 
it is recorded in his diary, he sometimes dined " in great splen- 
dor." But it is perhaps more in virtue of her husband's history and 
position, than of her own, that she here deserves especial atten- 
tion. Major William Jackson for many years held an intimate 
personal relation to Washington, and was at all times regarded by 
him with the utmost kindness and esteem. He was born of a good 
family in Cumberland, England, and had entered the southern 




Ijsjjzabt,'- 



^ 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 303 

department of the continental army in tlie very beginning of the 
revolutionary struggle, that is, in June, ITYS, when he was not 
yet seventeen years of age. He served with honor in different en- 
gagements, and in several commissions of important trust, and for 
several years, under General Lincoln, filled the office of Assistant 
Secretary of War, which he resigned, greatly to General Lincoln's 
regret, only when the peace of 1789 rendered it practicable for 
him to retire from his post without injury to the public service. 
After the organization of the federal government he was invited 
by Washington to join him as aid-de-camp and private secretary, 
and in this situation he remained until the year 1793, when he 
sailed for Europe upon private business. He appears to have given 
great satisfaction to Washington, who stated that "his deport- 
ment had been regulated by principles of integrity and honor," 
and " the duties of his station executed with ability," and with 
expressions of " sincere esteem and regard " embraced the oppor- 
tunity to thank him for all his attentions, and for the services he 
had rendered him ever since he had been a member of the presi- 
dential family. 

It was this near personal relation of Major Jackson to the 
president which afterwards gave to the lady I am writing of her 
marked distinction in the circle of the Republican Court. Wash- 
ington was present at her marriage, in the venerable mansion of 
Mr. Willing, which, having stood for one hundred and eleven 
years, has just given way to the so called improvements of modern 
times.* That whole region of a great city has long since changed 

* While in Philadelphia last siimmer (1856), pursuing researches respecting the social history of 
that city, with a view to render this edition of " The Republican Court " as complete and accurate 
as possible in its delineation of the higher life of our first metropolis, during the administration 
of our first president, the following paragraphs arrested my attention in The Evening Bullelin. I 
have not been able to ascertain by whom they were written, but they are so pertinent to my pres- 
ent subject that the reader will approve my transcribing them. 

" One of the few survivors of the original first class buildings of Philadelphia is soon to be de- 



804 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

its aspects. Elegance no longer reigns tliere, and tlie abodes of 
rank and fashion are passing — liave passed indeed — into tlie 
money-getting uses of " men of enterprise." It was on a beauti- 
ful afternoon in September, in tbe hours towards evening, wbicb 
business had left to repose and quiet, that, wending through some 
of the ancient parts of the city, always interesting to me, my steps 
were arrested by the venerable aspect of this house. It had just 

molislied, and a successor more in accordance with the progress of the city and the demands of the 
age wiL he erected upon its site. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company have purchased the ' Wil- 
ling Mansion,' at the southwest corner of Third street and Willing's alley, and this relic of the sub- 
stantial architecture of the Philadelphia of more than a century ago, will soon be torn down to make 
way for a handsome building for the use of the company as an ofBce. The old structure, although 
so far behind the age, is stiH a fine specimen of a commodious and substantial dwelling. Its wide 
front, and the spacious hall that runs through the middle of the building, are in striking contrast 
with too many of the fashionable residences of the present day. The Willing Mansion was begun in 
1745, and was finished the following year. It was built by Mr. John Palmer, who was weU known 
in his day as a bricklayer. It was he who built St. Peter's church and many others of the best 
structures that were put up in Philadelphia about the middle of the last century. Mr. Palmer, the 
builder, was the father of the late Mr. John B. Palmer, who was for many years the Secretary and 
Treasurer of the Mutual Assurance Company. The old mansion was occupied for many years by 
the Willing family, but for a considerable period, more recently, it has been used for a boarding 
house. The building itself has been extensively modernized, but its vicinity has undergone still 
greater changes. Half a century ago there were but four or five buildings upon the west side of 
Third street, between Willing's alley and Spruce street. Bingham's splendid mansion and grounds 
occupied a large share of the southern portion of this space, while spacious gardens intervened be- 
tween the Chew Mansion and the Willing Mansion at the comer of the alley. The Willing property 
extended westward to Fourth street. At the mansion of Chief Justice Chew, just referred to, Wash- 
ington had his head quarters at one time. 

" We are informed by Mr. John F. Watson, the annalist, that the Willing Mansion was built 
after the form and model of the homestead building of the family at Bristol, England. The door 
posts and pediments which still occupy their original position in the front of the building are of Bath 
stone ; they were imported from England all ready for putting up. ]\Ir. Watson informs us that 
when the mansion was built it was a kind of a country retirement, being beyond Dock creek, and 
consequently at that period out of town ! To reach the house you went up hill along Walnut street, 
from the creek, to Third street, and thence again by a narrow, deep-cut road up a greater hill to the 
mansion. This neighborhood was called ' The Hill,' in old times, but the high ground that gave 
it this distinction has long since been almost levelled down, while the line of the creek has been 
filled up. Among the ancient landmarks of the neighborhood is the old buttonwood tree that still 
stands in front of the Willing Mansion. The writer of this article remembers when a boy, thirty 
years ago, gathering ' buttonballs ' from beneath the wide-spread branches of this tree, and he 
remembers, too, marvelling much at how the hitching post at the door had grown into the spreading 
base of the tree, and how it was held there as fibrmly as though it was part and parcel of the living 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 305 

been abandoned to the invader ; every inliabitant had departed ; 
but the stroke of demolition had not yet fallen upon its walls. Its 
fine doorway stood open, and I entered. It was a noble mansion, 
and I could not but regret that the opulent proprietors of such 
places as these in Philadelphia and New York do not approve the 
spirit which prevails in older lands, by defying trade and improve- 
ment, in building up facades like that. of Northumberland House, 
which shuts off the whole world of London and its Charing Cross 
from one " home of the Percies," leaving all behind at least to 
an ancient and honorable possession. As I passed through its ex- 
tensive halls and numerous apartments I could not refrain from 
calliag up many a spectacle of which this domus antiqua had been 
the scene, in the course of that century and more, in which it had 
been occupied by a family eminently social and long distinguished 
in the ranks of gentility and fashion. It was in the very room, 

timber. Tlie base of the old tree had a habit of absorbing and growing around every object that 
came in its way, and at some future day the bricks grown up into the heart of the trunk may do 
damage to the saws or axes of those who attempt to convert it into plank or fire-wood. This vene- 
rable tree, and the one that stood to the south of it, were planted in 1749 by Messrs. Thomas Wil- 
ling and John Palmer. The southern one became mnch decayed, and was cut down several years 
since ; but the other tree stiU stands green and erect, although it has been shorn of most of its 
branches. We presume the sturdy old trunk wiU soon have to share the fate of its fellow, and the 
mansion they both shaded so long and so faithfully. 

" The Willing family has for a century and a quarter stood in the front rank of Philadelphia 
society. We find tlie name among the early merchants of the city, and it is conspicuous in the an- 
cient records of the city government. In 1747 the name of Mr. Charles Willing first appears as 
an alderman in the records of the City Council A year later he was elected Mayor of the city, 
and on his retirement from that office, after a term of one year, we find him presenting to the trea- 
suiy the one hundred pounds salary yo-5t voted him. This he returned to the treasury in lieu of the 
entertainment usually given to the corporation by the retiring mayors. In 1754 Mr. Charles Wil- 
ling was again elected mayor, and in 1763 Mr. Thomas Willing held the same ofllce. Mr. Thomas 
Willing, who died in 1821, aged 89 years, was probably better known in Philadelphia than any other 
person of his name. This gentleman, from 1754 to 1807 successively held the offices of Secretary 
to the Congress of Delegates at Albany, Mayor of the City of Philadelphia, her representative in 
the General Assembly, President of the Provincial Congress, delegate to the Congress of the Con- 
federation, President of the first chartered Bank in America, and President of the first Bank of the 
United States. In addition to -all these public duties, Mr. Thomas Willing was an active merchant 
for a period of sixty years." 

39 



306 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Qow deserted and dismantled, in whicli I was standing, tliat, sur- 
rounded by as many " fair women and brave men " as ever graced 
sucb. an occasion, William Jackson, some sixty years before, bad 
given bis band to Elizabeth Willing. It was a November even- 
ing, and that fine old bouse bad been decorated and ligbted for a 
festive display. Tbe venerable gentleman wbom I bave so often 
referred to, its proprietor, and tbe partner of bis bonorable life, 
were moved by all tbe feeling wbicb attends tbe surrender of a 
lovely cbild to tbe vicissitudes of a new condition. Washington 
was tbere ; Kobert Morris also ; and Hamilton, Lincoln, and Knox, 
in full military dress, gratified witb tbe opportunity to manifest 
tbeir interest in an event so important to one wbo bad long been 
tbeir companion in arms. Tbe elegant Count de Noailles was also 
present. Mrs. Bingbam never looked so magnificently beautiful 
as on tbis occasion, wben, endeavoring, witb tbe confidence of one 
more used to sucb circumstances, to lend support to ber younger 
sister, ber own suffused cbeeks bore witness of tbe gentle agitation 
wbicb moved ber bosom. Tbere too stood a circle of lovely girls, 
sisters yet younger tban sbe on wbom all eyes were now turned. 
President Cbew, long an eminent representative of bis country's 
justice, looked on witb pleased attention. Tbe venerable Wbite 
and bis friend Blackwell, associated pastors, sanctified tbe scene. 

It required some effort to dissipate tbe reverie. In tbat ancient 
bouse are no more brilliant or joyous assemblies ; " its lights are 
fled, its garlands dead." One only of that bright assembly now 
survives ; but tbat survivor is the bride. At the age of eighty- 
eight the Elizabeth Wilhng of that evening stiU looks out upon 
tbe city so dear to her for its marvellous and sweet associations, 
but changed, even more than she herself is changed. Long known 
as the widow of Major Jackson — her eye as beaming, her form as 
light, ber step as quick, those who see ber only now would say, 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 307 

as they would ever have been in tlie bloom and grace of youtliful 
maturity — her house the abode of order, taste, and elegant com- 
petence, herself the object of affectionate interest and service from 
her children and her friends. Mrs. Jackson is not only the sole sur- 
vivor of the occasion I have recalled, but the only living repre- 
sentative of the especial entourage of Washington : of those ladies, 
I mean, whose husbands held positions near the person of the 
President. Mrs. Bradford, who survived Mrs. Hamilton, was the 
last of those whose husbands were in his cabinet ; she was living 
when the earlier editions of this work appeared, but has since been 
united to those who went before her.* 



* Mrs. Bradford died at her seat in Burlington, New Jersey, on the thirtieth of November, 1854-, 
at the age of ninety years. The rector of St. Mary's, in his address to the graduating class of 
March, 1855, thus refers to her ; " There are two new graves in sweet St. Mary's Churchyard, to 
which my heart must ever turn. I have stood at both of them within four montlis. And there were 
tears of mine mixed with the earth, in both. Pastoral tears. Love's tears. Tears of sorrow. But 
not of one who ' sorrows as others, who have no hope.' Come with me, darlings, for a moment to 
their graves. In the grave that we shall go to first, sleeps one who had seen ninety winters. Think 
of that, my children ! Ninety winters ! She was twelve years older than our nation. She was of 
patriot blood. And was, herseU", a patriot. Scarcely an earthly blessing, that was not mixed in her 
fuU cup. Position ; influence ; wealth ; domestic happiness ; troops of friends ; good health, for 
more than eighty years : what the world calls a prosperous fortune, was never more completely re- 
alized. And, yet, they did not spoil her. They did not touch the substance of her soul. She only 
seemed to know them, as the motives for habitual thankfulness. She was the simplest, the humblest, 
the gentlest, the least selfish, of women. She was the ' little child, of Jesus Christ. In the 
world, she was not of the world. Or, only, of it, to be a blessing to it. The freest from faults, of 
any one I ever knew ; she was the most penitential. With a hand that scattered bounties, like the 
spring ; with a tongue that dropped blessings, like the dew ; with a heart which realized, as far as 
human nature may, the apostolic portraiture of love ; kind, envying not, thinking no evil, believing 
all things, hoping all things, enduring all things : she, yet, could find no word of David, strong 
enough to bear the impression of her own unworthiness. In the habitual, lifelong, practice of 
' whatsoever things are tnie, whatsoever things are venerable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if there be any 
virtue, if there be any praise : ' the prayer which seemed to her the most expressive of her case and 
character, was, ' God be merciful to me, the sinner ! ' Thus moulded, and sustained by grace, the 
purchase of the cross, through her long life; her daily effort, to adorn the doctrine of God, her 
Saviour, in all things ; the posture, which Llrs. Bradford chose, to die in, was that of His own lit- 
tle, trusting, child : and, ' Even so, come. Lord Jesus,' were the words, which bore her parting 
^irit, to its resting-place, in Paradise." 



308 THE REPUBLICAN COUET. 

VII. 

Next, probably, in social importance and exhibition, to ]\Irs. 
Bingliam and the Willings, was the establishment of Mrs. Robert 
Morris. Her husband's partnership, through thirty-nine years, in 
the commercial house of the Willings, had been the source of a 
steady, honorable and liberal income, and 'when he retired from it 
in 1793 it was with solid opulence, and only to engage in plans of 
greater, but, as many supposed, not less certain wealth than he 
had drawn from the India connections in which he had been so 
long and prosperously engaged with Mr. Willing. Of his public 
reputation I have spoken elsewhere. It belongs to the history of 
America ; and the elegant Botta has not in the least exaggerated 
his services in saying that the country " owes as much to the finan- 
cial operations of Robert Morris as to the negotiations of Benja- 
min Franklin." His patriotic services were well known and justly 
estimated in his lifetime. He was high in the grateful regard of 
Washington,* and of all those warriors and statesmen who had 
participated in the private councils of the chief, and knew from 
what impending ruin the fiscal achievements of Mr. Morris had at 
times saved our armies. Undoubtedly he was a character of. the 



* The foUovang incident of President Washington's last levee, on his retiring from the presidency, 
■was mentioned by the late Mr. John B. Wallace, who, as a youth, was present, with his father, then a 
resident of Burlington in New Jersey, on that occasion, and a witness of it. Washington received 
his guests, standing between the windows in his back drawing-room. The company, entering a front 
room, and passing through an unfolding door, made their salutations to the President, and, turning 
off, stood on one side. His manner was courteous, of course, but always on these occasions some- 
what reserved. He did not give his hand, but merely bowed, which was the mode for that day. 
Mr. Morris came in, and when the President saw him, entering the room, he advanced to meet him, 
and shook him heartily by the hand : Mr. Morris, in allusion partly, perhaps, to the day, which may 
have been cloudy, but more to the event, repeating as he came forward the lines — 

" The day is overcast, the morning lowers, 
And heavily in clouds brings on the day— 
The great the important day." 




JWmS, MCDBETEIT m(D)IEUEI^o 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. * 309 

first class, and "being eminently insinuating and attractive in Lis 
manners, and having a taste for social display, liis public position 
and his liberal fortune enabled liim to indulge this disposition 
with splendor, dignity, and effect. " xVn introduction to Mr. Mor- 
ris," says a writer, in giving his reminiscences of the time, " was a 
matter in course with all strangers who visited Philadelphia, either 
on commercial, public, or private business. It largely dej)ended 
on him to do the honors of the city, and certainly no one was bet- 
ter quahfied or more willing to support them. His house was a 
seat of elegant but unostentatious hospitality, and his domestic 
affairs were managed with the same admirable order which had so 
long and so proverbially distinguished his counting house, the office 
of the secret committee of Congress, and that of finance." 

His wife, Mary White, a daughter of Colonel Thomas White, 
originally of England, and afterwards of Harford county, Mary- 
land, was a sister of the well known and venerable Dr. White, 
the first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania. Though 
not, like Mrs. Bingham, distinguished at this time for youth and 
splendid beauty, Mrs. Morris was remarkable for her striking and 
dignified appearance, as may be inferred from the accompanying 
portrait of her, which has been copied from one by the elder 
Peale, now adorning the Hall of Independence. So impressive 
was her air and demeanor, that those who saw her once seldom 
forgot her ; and it was an incident of General Lafayette's visit to 
this country in 1824 that, when arriving in Philadelphia, where he 
was publicly escorted through crowds of admiring and grateful citi- 
zens who thronged every place to behold him, he instantly, in passing 
before her door, recognized from his barouche — among the thou- 
sands who lined the streets and casements and housetops, to see 
and to cheer him — the tall and venerable person of Mrs. Morris, 
then standing at her own window. At this time he had not seen 



310 THE REPUBLICAN COUHT. 

lier for nearly forty years,* and, rising to salute her, as lie turned 
his manly and erected figure towards her house and bowed, with 
the military grace of France, the plaudits of the people, who un- 
derstood the incident, seemed as if they would never cease. 

A proper respect for the sacred character and office of her 
brother, Bishop White, and not less the dignity of her husband's 
fame, would naturally have restrained Mrs. Morris from any unbe- 
coming or excessive devotion to mere fashion, even if she had 
been inclined to it. But she had a fine taste for the worldly dig- 
nity of life, and in her house was found a steady exhibition of its 
most solid forms. Mr. Morris had given up to the President a fine 
mansion in which • he had lived before Philadelphia became the 
seat of government, and had taken for himself another, a little 
above it, known to later times as the Schuylkill Bank, at the 
southeast corner of Sixth and Market streets. Thoug^h it had not 
a very striking appearance, it was a fine substantial structure, from 
its angular position commanding abundance of light, and relieved 
by extensive edifices in the rear. It was not comparable with Mrs. 
Bingham's, in elegance of building, grounds, or furniture, but its 
domestic appointments and the course of life within it were proba 
bly not much less expensive. The convenient and democratic sys- 
tem of overcrowded balls and recej)tions by which ladies and gen- 
tlemen are now entertained by hundreds at a time, and a thousand 
imperfect social obligations discharged as imperfectly about once 
in a year, was unknown to the gentry of our early metropolis. 
The " visiting list " enrolled a very much more extensive and a 

* Among the public honors given by the citizens of Philadelphia to Lafayette on this visit to 
America, was a public ball. Mrs. Morris was one of the few still surviving who belonged to 
the colonial and revolutionary era. To grace and dignify the festival a committee of the citizens 
specially invited her presence, but she declined the civility on account of her advanced years aud 
long formed habits of retirement. Repeated solicitations, however, induced a compliance, aud she 
went in the costume of her day. Being seated on a bench of eminence beside the Mai-quis, her 
venerable figure and ancient style of dress made a featiure of this brilliant spectacle. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 311 

very different class of names from the list for entertainments. 
Neighborliood — a near acquaintance from any cause — a special 
or even a general service of some casual kind — with, many other 
causes easily conceived, might constitute a good title to a place in 
the former, but to be included in the latter was a different thing. 
The social rights and dispositions of the entertainer were justly 
considered not to be the only ones concerned. It was rightly sup- 
posed that those who were entertained had some rights also ; not 
legal ones, indeed, but very delicate and important ones notwith- 
standing ; social enjoyment had not become a " business matter;" 
and to invite gentlemen and ladies only to meet all the clients of 
the host, if a lawyer, or all his patients, if a physician, or to give 
something like gentility to a grande democrate-socialiste melee^ 
where, once a year, people of every sort, without regard to class, 
connection, or character — to education, breeding, or social suita- 
bility — are herded promiscuously, -merely to gratify a love the 
hostess may happen to have for common notoriety, would have 
been considered high treason against society, and destructive alike 
of its interests, aims, and enjoyments. Dinner company, well 
chosen, frequent, and elegant, was the style of the time. It was 
in this style that the home of Mrs. Morris was distinguished. Be- 
sides its essential household of table-servants, coachmen, footmen, 
&c., her establishment had its housekeeper, butler, (a fine old 
Frenchman named Constance,) its confectioner, and all the reti- 
nue of a mansion in which dinner company is frequently and ele- 
gantly entertained. Unlike most of the menial servants of that 
day, in Philadelphia, Mrs. Morris's were all white, and they all 
wore the Morris livery. As a fitting appendage to this town 
residence, Mr. Morris had his well known country seat. The 
Hills, which I describe more particularly in another part of this 
chapter. 



312 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Thougli not a man distinguislied by birth, nor, I believe, of 
early liberal education, Mr. Morris possessed considerable taste 
for the arts, and exerted bimself to introduce them into our infant 
republic. It was by bis encouragement tbat Jardella, an Italian 
sculptor very well known in PHladelpbia, established himself in 
America ; and under his orders were made, among other things 
by that artist, those two fine mezzo relievos which so long adorned 
the window arches of the Chestnut street theatre — one represent- 
ing Comedy and Tragedy, and the other the Genius of Music. 
Some of the most beautiful Grobelin tapestry ever brought from 
France was imported by him during the revolution of 1792. He 
was, however, unable to appropriate it, as he intended, to the de- 
coration of the great mansion he commenced on Chestnut street, and 
after his death it passed, about the year 1834, into the possession 
of Mrs. Eichard Alsop, in whose tasteful and elegant parlors it was 
afterwards exceedingly admired. The reverses of fortune which 
overtook Mr. Morris's large speculations in landed estates reached 
their crisis, I think, in the winter of 1796, and after that date his 
style of social life of course was changed. He retired to The 
Hills in the beginning of 1797, and at this delightful place re- 
mained with his family in entire seclusion. His house in the city 
passed to the occupancy of Mr. Penn. 

The home of Mr. Morris was west of the presidential man- 
sion, on the corner of Market and Sixth streets. East ©f it, near 
the corner of Fifth street, resided General "Walter Stewart, with 
whom and Mrs. Stewart the family of Washington were very in- 
timate. General Stewart came to this country from Ireland, and 
at an early period entered the revolutionary army, in which, on 
several occasions, he very honorably distinguished himself. By a 
resolution of Cona-ress medals were ordered to be struck for Gene- 
ral Wayne, Lieutenant Colonel Fleury, and Major Walter Stewart, 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 313 

for tlieir gallant conduct in tlie storming of Stony Point. As a 
colonel, Stewart is a prominent figure in Trumbull's picture of tlie 
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. He was lils:li in Wasliino;- 
ton's esteem and confidence, or his wife, splendid as was lier beauty, 
brilliant as was her conversation, and amiable and fascinating as 
were her manners, would scarcely have become one of the most 
conspicuous ladies of the republican court, from which her connec- 
tions were so widely separated. She was the eldest daughter of 
Blair McClenachan, a retired naturalized Irish merchant, of great 
wealth, who once owned quite a celebrated place at Germantown, 
whence, as his temper prompted, or his friends, Jefferson, Rush, 
Dallas, and other democrats, deemed it expedient, he would ride 
into town to assist in burning Jay's treaty, in gi\dng a triumphal 
reception to Genet, or any other act of hostility to the Washing- 
ton party. General Stewart however remained faithful in feeling 
and conduct to the chief, and was always proud of the considera- 
tion in which he was held by him. 

" Walter Stewart," writes Mr. Charles Jared Ingersoll, " was 
one of the handsomest men of his day ; " and Deborah McClena- 
chan was already famous for those personal attractions which after- 
wards commanded so much homage, at home and abroad, when 
they were married, by Dr. White, on the eleventh of April, liTSl. 
Washington was unable to be present, but he sent from his head- 
quarters, at New Windsor, a graceful letter of congratulation on 
the occasion, and the next year became godfather to their son. 
When they went to Europe, in 1785, he gave General Stewart let- 
ters of introduction, and concluded the communication in which 
they were enclosed, by saying, "Mrs. Washington joins me in 
wishing you a good and prosperous voyage, and in compliments to 
Mrs. Stewart.' Tell her if she do n't think of me often, I shall not 

easily forgive her, and will scold at, and beat her — soundly too — 
40 



314 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

at piquet, tlie next time I see her." This is one of the few exam 
pies we have of the hero's playful humor ; it is as neatly delivered 
as his celebrated letter inviting Mrs. Cochran to a camp dinner. 
He presents his friend as "a gallant and deserving officer who 
served through all the war Avith distinguished reputation ; " and 
Roljert Morris writes of him at the same time, that "his private 
character is as amiable as his public one has been glorious." 

From 1785 to lYST General Stewart and Mrs. Stewart were 
in London, Paris, and the resorts of fashion in Germany and It- 
aly. Returning to Philadelphia, they lived in a style of liberality 
and elegance suitable to their large income and cultivated taste. 
Their house, during "Washington's administration, was much fre- 
quented by that portion of official and private society which was 
most distinguished for its attachment to his person and policy. 

About the time of his retirement from public life, the president 
sent portraits* of himself — of a size somewhat larger than com- 
mon miniatures — to three of the ladies with whom his intercourse 
in Philadelj^hia had been the most unreserved and affectionate : 
Mrs. Bingham, ]Mi*s. Robert Morris, and Mrs. Walter Stewart. In 
a note accompanying that to IMrs. Stewart, he begs her to regard 
it " not so much for any merit of the original as for its excellence as 
a work of art ; " and declares it " the production of a young lady." 
The name of the fair artist is not given, but it is evident that he 
does not refer to Madame de Brehan, whose pictures of him I have 
mentioned elsewhere, as that distinguished personage was by no 
means young, when in America, six or seven years before. 

* These three portraits are probably by the same hand, and are to be reckoned among the origi- 
nals known to exist of Washington. One of Stuart's finest pictures of the president was painted for 
Mrs. Bingham. The one now sent to her was accompanied by the following note : 

" In presenting the inclosed, with compliments, to Mrs. Bingham, the President fulfils a promise. 
Not for the representation, not for the value, but as the production of a fair hand, the offering ia 
made, and the acceptance of it requested. 

" Wednesday, ICth Marcli." 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 311 



YIII. 

The family of Cliief Justice Chew, being a numerous and very 
amiable one, filled a considerable space in society. Mr. Chew had 
been attorney general of the province, and also recorder of the 
city, and he was the last chief justice of the crown. Belonging 
to the old provincial party, it was hardly to be expected that he 
would support the cause of the revolution, which deprived him of 
the highest judicial office, and he was accordingly arrested as a 
person, if not positively disaffected, at least but lukewarm in the 
cause of American freedom, and sent during the war among the 
exiles in Virginia. But his prudence was so considerable, his mild- 
ness of disposition so pleasing, and his amenity and courtesy so 
universally acceptable, that he was extremely popular with all 
parties, and a personal friend and favorite with Washington him- 
self After the peace he maintained a dignified social rank, and, 
as president of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, was also a 
distinguished public character. Having been twice married, in ^he 
first place to Miss Galloway, and in the second to Miss Oswald, he 
had a numerous family connection, and most of his immediate 
descendants being daughters, who were eminent for the same 
beauty which has graced the family in our own times, (Mrs. 
Phillips, Mrs. Carroll, wife of Charles Carroll the younger, Mrs. 
Alexander Wilcocks, Mrs. John Eagar Howard, Mrs. Nicklin, and 
others,) his town house, a fine old structure in Third street — • 
built by Mr. Charles Willing for his son-in-law. Colonel Byrd of 
Westover, and afterwards the head-quarters of General Washing- 
ton — not less than Cliveden, his country seat at Germantown, now 
historic as " Chew's House," were the scenes of constant and re- 
fined though not very ostentatious or costly entertainments. 



316 THE REPUBLICAN COUllT. 

Judo-e Peters witli liis family must be prominent in my records. 
His name had been long honorably known in both cburcli and 
state. The Eeverend Eichard Peters, a man of fortune, a scholar 
and a divine, was for many years the rector as well as a liberal 
benefactor of Christ church, and the possessor of one of the best 
libraries ever brought to Philadelphia. Other members of his 
family were connected with the proprietary offices : his father, I 
think, though perhaps it was his uncle the clergyman, as secretary 
of the Land Office. Judge Peters himself is known traditionally 
more by his jests than by his decisions, for though the latter were 
good, the former were brilliant.^' His domestic attachments are 
illustrated by an anecdote related by Mrs. Adams, in one of her 
letters. While in London, in 1786, he dined on one occasion 
at the ambassador's. When he entered the drawing-room Mrs. 
Adams p-ave into his hands several letters which had been received 

o 

for him. He carried them to the light, broke their seals, and 

* Peters was in Congress -when Burgoyne was captiured, an event of which General Gates trans- 
mitted the intelligence to that body by his aide, Lieutenant Wilkinson. Wilkmson, it appeared, 
having staid a little too long on the way, to pay his homage to a lady whom he was courting, did 
not reach Yorktown until after the Intelligence of the capture had been received. Had the news 
been less agreeabb that body might not have been very amiably disposed ; the occasion, however, 
was bland and exhilarating, and there was no disposition to withhold from the messenger the ordi- 
nary tokens of approbation. Mr. Peters took the initiative, and on the morning after Mr. Wilkin- 
son's arrival, rising in his place, with an air of uncommon dignity, moved vei*y gravely " that as a 
mark of its sense of Mr. Wilkinson's service, there should be presented to him a pair of silver spurs." 
Thomas McKean, of Pennsylvania, in a, letter to John Adams, written in 1815, attributes this motion 
to Samuel Adams, (\Vorks of John Adams, x. 177,) but, according to common tradition, it was by 
Peters, of wliom it was characteristic. The judge was a great agriculturist, and very fond of ex- 
hibiting at Belmont the fruits of his skill in that way. One summer day he had invited his friends 
to partake of a rich water-melon ; but, being very large, his servant, in bringing it to the table, 
happened to tumble. The melon rolled from the dish, and falling on a marble floor, broke to pieces 
before the assembled guests. Looking at the fragments for a moment, " Never mind," said the host, 
nothing disconcerted, " it is but a squash— take it away." Advertising his place for sale, he mentioned 
among its attractions a " fine stream of water ; " a gentleman who drove out to see the property was 
7ery well pleased with it, but thought there must be some mistake about any such " fine stream," 
as he discovered nothing in that way but a little rivulet so small that it could scarcely bo seen 
through the grass. " Well," asked the judge, with perfect sangfroid, " how could there be afner 
stream than that ? " 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA 317 

thi'ew them on the table, exclaiming, " Not one from my wife ! I 
have lost two letters from her. The devil ! I would rather have 
found two lines from her than ten folios from any one else." 
Washington, who placed him on the bench, was very fond of his 
society, and frequently, as I have elsewhere mentioned, drove out 
to Belmont, his country house, to enjoy an unceremonious and 
recreative intercourse with him, walking with him sometimes for 
hours under the dark grove of hemlocks which an earlier genera- 
tion of the Peters family had planted there. 

His ancestor, as I have* said, was a rector of Christ church, 
and Mr. Peters was quite proud of his orthodoxy, though, like 
Lord Eldon, he was rather one of the buttresses than the pillars 
of the church — giving his support from the outside. With Mr. 
Powell, he was sent by the General Convention of the Protestant 
Ej)iscopal Church, soon after the organization of that body, in 
1781, to confer with the English bishops, and to induce them, if 
they would do so, to grant the episcopacy to the new states. The 
English bishops, as it appeared, were very scrupulous ; and, afraid 
lest the church in America might not be so well disposed as the 
delegates believed, made a great many inquiries of them about 
every point of discipline, doctrine, and condition. Mr. Peters, 
who was probably the medium of communication, gave very pleas- 
ant answers, but they were not always so exact and full on 2)oints 
of nice divinity, as the bishops desired. " We found him," said 
one of that body, " a delightful companion, a most well-bred gen- 
tleman, an accomphshed scholar, and extremely well informed on 
every possible subject, except upon the one for which he came to 
England." Q \^V 

The family of Shippen was rich and eminent. Possessed of no 
remarkable spirituaHty, nor, perhaps, as a general rule, of the 
highest order of intellect, its members were yet much and justly 



318 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

respected. They were noticeable for those qualities Tvliicli, though 
insufficient in themselves to confer the best social distinction, may- 
be said to constitute an excellent element in the ordinary compo- 
sition of good society. Easy, not apt to be excited, within proper 
limits fond of property and of all the best things belonging to 
this world, through a large connection indulging in a constant 
round of sober enjoyments, bestowing smiles on all and frowns 
on few or none, they offended not at all, and were universally 
agreeable. The well known medical professor. Dr. William Ship- 
pen, I suppose possessed the most genius. Of his rank among 
men of science I have written elsewhere. His own family influence 
was large, and his marriage with Alice Lee, daughter of Thomas 
Lee, governor of Yu'ginia, and sister of Richard Henry and Ar- 
thur Lee, mad6 his residence (the respectable mansion still stand- 
ing on the southwest corner of Prune and Fourth streets, after- 
wards distinguished as the home of Dr. Wistar) a centre and 
resort of most of the Virginia aristocracy who were brought to 
Philadelphia in consequence of its becoming the capital. The an- 
cient family reputation, with Dr. Shippen's medical fame, and the 
high judicial station of Edward Shippen, so long honorably known 
as the chief justice of Pennsylvania, gave dignity to all this cir- 
cle; and with the inherited rank of the chief justice's wife, and 
the beauty and charming manners in early life, and the affecting 
history at a aater period, of his daughter, Mrs. Arnold, and the 
excellent social position of his other daughters, Mrs. Burd and 
Mrs. Lee, were some of the causes which contributed to the unde- 
niable elevation of the Shippens in the domain of fashion. 

In some paragraphs respecting the clergy I have referred to 
the distinction of Bishop White in that profession ; but, with Dr. 
Blackwell and one or two of his other clerical associates, he was 
also a conspicuous figure in the higher society of the city. His 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 319 

family was a good one. He received from his fatlier, Colonel 
Thomas "White, an English gentleman who, as surveyor of Har- 
ford county, Maryland, had made good purchases of land, a for- 
tune which was then considered liberal ; and though the bishop 
lost not less than thirty thousand dollars by being compelled to 
receive in continental paper what his father had loaned in gold 
and silver, he was still enabled to maintain an elegant style of 
living. He inherited from his aunts in England an estate at 
Twickenham, not far from that of the poet Pope, with which he 
was perfectly familiar, and which he frequently described. His 
town residence, a substantial building, erected by himself, and oc- 
cuj)ied by him till his death, yet stands in Walnut street, and is 
familiar to this generation. His rural seat called Brookland, a 
valuable farm of forty-eight acres, close to Philadelphia, upon Is- 
lington lane, was variously beautiful, and the scene of such summer 
hospitality as became a bishop and a gentleman. A sister of Mrs. 
White had married Governor Paca of Maryland, and his own sis- 
ter, as I have already mentioned, was the wife of Robert Morris. 
He was in other ways connected with public characters, and bis 
position as one of the chaplains of Congress,* not less than his 
high ecclesiastical office, and his well known patriotism, secured 
for him a wide recognition as one of the leading men of his time 
in this country. 

* I do not know wlietlier the following incident is recorded in any biography of Bishop White, 
but it is one which 1 have from good authority. He was in Harford county, Maryland, visiting his 
relations there, when he received intelligence of his appointment to the chaplaincy of Congress. 
His brother-in-law. Governor Paca, who was at this time in Congress, in communicating it to him, 
rather advised him, on prudential grounds, not to take it : urging for his consideration the fact that 
if the revolution were successful his generally known approval of it would secure him a sufficient 
measure of public favor, while, if the British arms triumphed, the fact that he, a clergyman of tha 
Church of England, and so very specially bound to the government, had joined a revolt, would bring 
upon him a special measure of severity. But such considerations never weighed with Bishop White. 
He set off at once for Yorktown, and the first answer Governor Paca received was from the bishop 
in person, that he had come to fiU his office ! 



320 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

The connection of tlie Hamiltons gave a feature to tlie lighter 
part of fashionable society. The founder of this family, I believe, 
was Andrew Hamilton, known, even in the middle of the last cen- 
tury, as the ablest lawyer of Pennsylvania. A mystery is said to 
have clouded his early history, and it was commonly rumored that 
his true name was not Hamilton, but, if I am not mistaken, Trent. 
The behef was that he was sent in ^outh to Maryland, to oversee 
some estates, but that having a strong intellect, and a turn more 
liberal, he studied law. He came to Philadelphia from Maryland, 
and soon rose to eminence in a profession which was concerned 
much more with his abilities than his bii'th or history. He was an 
associate of Franklin, and much of Franklin's way of thinking in 
religion. His son was James Hamilton, for some time a governor 
of the province. He, or the earliest of the Hamiltons, had taken 
up large quantities of land across the Schuylkill, which, on the 
death of the latter, passed, in part at least, to his nephew, William, 
styling himself " of the Woodlands," around whom the younger 
members of the family were principally grouped. From his youth, 
he seems to have possessed a high degree of taste. On graduating, 
in 1762, at the Academy of Philadelphia, he gave a fete at the 
Woodlands to his college friends, among whom were young men 
afterwards known as Judge Yeates, Judge Peters, ]\Ir. Dickenson 
Sergeant, the Eeverend Doctor Andrews, Bishop White, and 
others. The beautiful edifice for which his place has since been 
celebrated was not then erected, and his entertainment was neces- 
Barily spread in a temporary building ; but its decorations were so 
elegant and appropriate as to induce a general admiration of it. 
He afterwards lived in a manner more marked perhaps by ostenta- 
tion than by dignity. His chariot and four, with postilhon boys, 
attracted wonder from some, and envy from others, but not having 
in the character of its occupant any thing remai'kable, to give 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 321 

respectability to sucli display, it caused no general sentiment of 
regard. He owned the large tract on which Hamilton village now 
stands, and other land in the vicinity, running up to the perma- 
nent bridge, which, on the advice of Mr. Wilham Cramond, he 
sold, to relieve himself from some pecuniary inconveniences which 
his desire to retain landed possessions involved him in. One of 
his nieces — the daughters of. his brother Andrew, who had mar- 
ried a Jewess, Miss Franks, as I have stated elsewhere — was dis- 
'tinguished by uncommon beauty of figure. Having been admired 
by many of her own country, she bestowed her hand, at last, very 
suddenly, npon an Irish gentleman, of slender parts, and lived 
abroad. She was afterwards separated from him. Another, also 
distinguished for unusual loveliness, married Mr. Lisle, a broker, 
who knew very well the art of acquii'ing wealth, but was thought 
by some persons not to be worthy of so handsome a woman. But 
before their marriage, as well in vu-tue of their expectations as of 
their beauty, the Hamiltons gave brilliance and attraction to the 
evening circle, and made a decided feature in the society merely 
fashionable. * 

Major Pierce Butler, a representative from South Carolina to 
the federal Congress, was deservedly conspicuous in the best 
society of the city. He was a widower, but maintained an estab- 
lishment suitable for a liberal-minded gentleman, both in South 
Carolina and in his home in the metropolis. At his house were 
to be found the most distinguished representatives of the southern 
states. He professed to be a democrat, but democrats were seldom 
seen in his parlor; and the democracy of his day, especially the 
democracy of his part of the country, far as it was removed from 
the standards of federal bearing and dignity, was not less re- 
moved from the democracy of later times. Whatever may have 

been his political heresies, or his eccentricities, of which he pos- 
41 



322 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

sessed many, every account wliicli I have lieard or read of liim 
lias represented him as a high bred gentleman and a man of 
honor, and as such he was universally esteemed. From a sister of 
his, who was a charming woman in her youth, as well as from the 
late Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, with whom I had sometimes the 
honor of walking through the city in which she had been a leader 
of the polite world in the days of Washington, and others, be- 
longing to the distinguished society I attempt to describe, who 
survived it to my own times, I have heard many agreeable remi- 
niscences of that period, which enter in some form into the texture 
of this work. 

Mr. Elias Boudinot and Mrs. Boudinot, in a sphere not less 
aristocratic, but somewhat different and more grave, were also emi- 
nent persons. Mr. Boudinot was originally from New Jersey, the 
federal pohtics of which state he controlled almost entirely so long 
as federal politics prevailed at all. He had the distinction of pos- 
sessing a large fortune, and those liberal social dispositions which 
displayed it with advantage. His wife, before marriage Miss Stock- 
ton, was a sister of Richard Stockton, the weU-known signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, and his own sister was the wife of 
that gentleman. Mr. Boudinot had been in the continental con- 
gress of 1Y76, and in 1782 was elected the president of that body. 
During the war he had been commissary-general of prisoners, and 
to him Washington had now intrusted the responsible office of 
giving action and success to our federal mint. He had one child, 
a daughter, who had been married to one of the most distinguished 
and excellent men of his time, Mr. William Bradford, the attorney- 
general, and friend of Washington : a man looked to by every one 
for what he then was, and still more for the higher distinctions 
and honors which seemed certainly awaiting him. In this dig- 
nified circle happiness and virtue were ever united, and during 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 323 

tlie residence of Washington in Pliiladelpliia no social connection 
presented greater cliarms. As at Dr. Sliippen's was tlie centre of 
the Virginia gentry, and at Major Butler's that of the Carolinas, 
so at Mr. Boudinot's noble mansion, yet standing at the south-west 
corner of Arch and Ninth streets, were constantly assembled, as 
his friends or guests, the most eminent characters of his own state, 
his own connections also — the Stocktons, Daytons, Wallaces, Og- 
dens — perfectly known in the society of the metropolis, though 
residing generally on their domains in New Jersey. 

And with these families and persons, connected more or less 
intimately with the fashionable world, Philadelphia had at the 
same time her David Rittenhouse, John Bartram, Dominie Proud, 
young Brockden Brown, and others variously famous. 

IX. 

The addiction of American women to extravagance in dress has 
always been remarked by foreigners and by om* travelled country- 
men. The Count de Bochambeau observed at the close of the war 
that the wives of our merchants and bankers were " clad to the 

4''. 

tip of the French fashions, of which they were remarkably fond." 
Brissot de Warville deplores it as a great misfortune that in rej)ub- 
lics women should sacrifice so much time to " trifles," and that re- 
publican men should hold this habit in some estimation. He tells 
us the women of Philadelphia wore hats and caps almost as varied 
as those of Paris, and bestowed immense expenses in dressing their 
heads, displaying " pretensions too affected to be pleasing." 

The Quakers in Philadelphia were relatively much more numer- 
ous in 1791 than now, and they lived very much retu-ed among 
themselves; but the Duke la Rochefoucauld Liancourt perceives 
that " ribbons please young Quakeresses as well as others, and are 
the great enemies of the sect." 



324 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Of these Quaker women Brissot says, "They are what they 
should be, faithful to then- husbands, tender to their children, vigi- 
lant and economical in their households, and simple in their orna- 
ments ; their characteristic is that, neglectful of the exterior, they 
reserve all their accomplishments for the mind. Let ns say it — 
let us not cease to repeat it — it is where such manners obtain that 
we are to look for happy families and pubhc virtues. But we, mis- 
erable wretches ! gangrened with our own civilization and polite- 
ness, we have abjured these manners, and who among us is happy ? " 
Nevertheless, the Frenchman confesses that the young Quakeresses 
cui'l their locks with great care and anxiety, which costs them as 
much time as the most exquisite toilette, and wear hats covered 
with silk and satin.*^' Such observations give him pain. " These 
youthful creatures, whom nature has so well endowed, whose charms 

* During tlie period in which Philadelphia was the scat of government, on the arrival of the 
spi'ing and fall ships from England, the pavements, all along Front street, from Arch street to 
Walnut street, were lumbered and scattered, before the doors of importers, witli boxes and bales 
of English drygoods — the clerks, apprentices and subordinates of the merchants as busy as bees 
in their several vocations, some with sharp knives and claw-hammers, ripping and breaking open 
the packages and cases, and others within doors exhibiting the goods as salesmen — altogethei 
displaying a pleasant bustle of rivalship and comj^etition. The retailers, principally women, 
were hovering around, mingling with the men, and viewing with admiration the rich varieties 
of foreign chintzes, muslins, and calicoes, of the latest fashions. All sums of money were com 
puted in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings — dollars and cents being unused denominations 
excejjt in the reports of Mr. Ilamilton. "The first brilliant retail fancy drygoods shop was 
opened about this time," says a writer in Hazard's Register, " by a Mr. Whitcsides, as it was 
said, from London, in the true Bond street style, at number one hundred and thirty-four Mai-ket 
street; and the uncommon size of the panes of glass, the fine mull-mull and jaconet muslins, 
the chintzes and linens, suspended in whole pieces and entwined together in puflFs and festoons, 
and the shopmen behind the counter, bowing and smiling, created for a time some sensation." 
Other shops, however, appear to have been more successful, after the novelty of the show-windows 
of Mr. Whitesides was forgotten. Two of these were by a Mr. Guest and a ]\Irs. Holland. Mr. 
Guest, of number thirty South Second street, with a pleasant and smiling countenance, was busy 
in the mornings among the importers, picking up the choicest fabrics and the best bargains, while 
the sales at home were conducted by his two sons, and two daughters — handsome young women 
of the class of " gay Quakers." Mrs. Holland, at number two North Front street, was a person 
of extraordinary dimensions, and seemed quite too unwieldy for her vocation as principal sales- 
woman, but she was popular for patient devotion to the varied wants and whims of her custom- 
ers, and for the-most unfailing and fascinating smiles upon purchasers of even the smallest amount. 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 325 

have so little need of tlie aid of art, are remarkable for their choice 
of the finest muslins and silks ; oriental luxury itself would not dis- 
dain the linen they wear, and elegant fans play between their fin- 
gers." He urges the maxim of Penn, that " modesty and mildness 
are the finest ornaments of the soul," and warns them that theii* 
choice of delicate linens and rich silks is regarded by others as 
hypocritical luxury, ill disguised. Among Quakers of the braver 
sex he discovers that there are some who dress more like men of 
the world, who wear powder, silver buckles, and ruifies ; they are 
called " wet Quakers ; " the others regard them as " a kind of 
schismatics, or feeble men;" they admit them, indeed, to their 
places of worshipj on Sundays, but never to their monthly or quar- 
terly meetings. 



The President and Mrs. "Washington arrived in Philadelphia 
from Mount Vernon on Saturday, the twenty-eighth of November, 
and found that most of the public characters were already assem 
bled, and that the city was filled with strangers anticipating a gay 
and brilliant season in society. 

The rules for receiving visitors and entertaining company con- 
tinued to be very nearly the same as in New York. Respectable 
citizens and strangers, properly introduced, were seen by the Presi- 
dent every other Tuesday, between the hours of three and four in 
the afternoon. The receptions were in the dining-room, on the fii^st 
floor, in the back part of the house. At three o'clock, all the chau^s 
having been removed, the door was opened, and the President, usual- 
ly surrounded by members of his cabinet or other distinguished 
men, was seen by the approaching visitor standing before the fire- 
place, his hair powdered and gathered behind in a silk bag, coat and 
breeches of plain black velvet, white or pearl-colored vest, yellow 



326 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

gloves, a cocked liat in his hand, silver knee and shoe-buckles, and 
a long sword, with a finely wrought and glittering steel hilt, the coat 
worn over it, and its scabbard of polished white leather. On these 
occasions he never shook hands, even with his most intimate friends. 
The name of every one was distinctly announced, and he rarely 
forgot that of a person who had been once introduced to him. The 
visitor was received with a dignified bow, and passed on to another 
part of the room. At a quarter past three the door was closed, the 
gentlemen present moved into a cii'cle, and he proceeded, beginning 
at his right hand, to exchange a few words with each. When the 
circuit was completed he resumed his first position, and the visitors 
approached him in succession, bowed, and retired. 

At the levees of Mrs. Washington he did not consider any visits 
made to himself, and he appeared as a private gentleman, with nei- 
ther hat nor sword, conversing without restraint, generally with 
women, who rarely had other opportunities of meeting him. 

The first levee in Philadelphia was on the evening of Friday, the 
twenty-fifth of December. Mrs. Adams went, attended by her son, 
Mr. Charles Adams, and she mentions " the dazzhng Mrs. Bingham 
and her beautiful sisters, the Misses Allen, the Misses Chew, and, 
in short, a constellation of beauties." The eldest of these Aliens be- 
came Mrs. Greenleaf, and according to tradition was one of the most 
splendid beauties this country ever produced. Mrs. Theodore Sedg- 
wick, in whom were combined the finest graces of the New Eng- 
land matron, was conspicuous for a charming face, and an air and 
manner of singular refinement and elegance ; the magnificent Miss 
Wolcott, from Connecticut, was the "boast of gentlemen from the 
eastern states, who would not admit that even Mrs. Bingham was 
her equal ; and Mrs. Knox, of course, was observed of all obser\- 
ers. Miss Sally McKean wrote to a friend in New York, " You 
never could have had such a drawing-room ; it was brilliant beyond 





MiE^ciPiiiii®iD)'^iEis ^mmcmjJKBJK 



SOCIETY IN PHILADELPHIA. 327 

any thing you can imagine ; and tliougli there was a great deal of 
extravagance, tliere was so mnch. of Philadelphia taste in every 
thing that it must have been confessed the most delightful occasion 
of the kind ever known in this country." 

XI. 

The winter presented a continual succession of balls, dinner- 
parties, and other scenes of gayety and dissipation. The most sump- 
tuous dinners were at Mr. Bingham's and Mr. Morris's. Mr. Morris 
lived at the corner of Sixth and Market streets, near the President, 
and his house was the abode of a noble hospitality. The great 
financier who had so admirably managed the pecuniary affairs of 
the nation, had not yet displayed that incapacity or thoughtlessness 
in the administration of his own, which was soon to render him a 
banki^upt and an exile from those scenes of luxmious enjoyment 
which were dignified by his simple and gracious manners, unfailing 
generosity, and large intelligence. " I should spend a very dissi- 
pated wiater," writes Mrs. Adams, " if I were to accept one half 
the invitations I receive, particularly to the routs or tea-and-cards." 
Jeremiah Smith refers to the prevailing ]3assion for gambling : he 
did not think it had any tendency to add to the property or to in- 
crease the happiaess of its votaries, and therefore was of the com- 
paratively small number who would not play; but he says it was 
no uncommon thing in this winter to hear that a man or a woman 
had lost three or four hundred dollars at a sitting. The dancing 
at the assemblies, Mrs. Adams informs us, was very good, and the 
company of the best kind; the room however was despicable, and 
the etiquette — " it was not to be found." She remembers that " it 
was not so in New York," but is consoled by the fact that Phila- 
delphia society is generally agreeable ; " friendliness," she says, " is 
kept up among the pruicipal families, who appear to live in. great 



328 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

liarmony, and we meet at all places nearly tlie same company." A 
friend of Humpkreys, who was now at Lisbon, wiites to him, " You 
have never seen any thing like the fi-enzy which has seized upon 
the inhabitants here ; they have been half mad ever since this city 
became the seat of government ; and there is no limit to then* pro- 
digality, and, Ellsworth might say, profligacy. The probability is 
that some families will find they cannot support their dinners, sup- 
pers, and losses at loo, a great while ; but generally I believe the 
sharp citizens manage to make the temporary residents pay the bills, 
one way or another. There have been a good many delightful par- 
ties, and I have been at Chew's, McKean's, Clymer's, Dallas's, Bing- 
ham's, and a dozen other houses lately. Among your more particu- 
lar friends there is more quiet and comfort, and it is not impossible 
that the most truly respectable people are least heard of." 



THE SOUTHERN TOUR. 



The winter of lYQO and 1T91 was one of continnal and various 
excitement at tlie seat of government. In tlie Congress it was 
chiefly remarkable for a succession of stormy debates on the great 
financial schemes of Hamilton, resulting in the establishment of a 
national bank, and a tax on ardent spirits. It requii-ed no prophet to 
foretell the irritation which would be produced by the last measure ; 
it was an attack on the special interests of the enemies of the ad- 
ministration, those interests which we may well believe were most 
dear to them, and its consequences are a familiar part of history. 

" My health is now quite restored," the President wrote to La- 
fayette on the nineteenth of March, " and I flatter myself with the 
hope of a long exemption from sickness ; on Monday next I shall 
enter on your friendly prescription of exercise, intending at that 
time to begin a long journey to the southward." To this tour he 
had been invited by many of the leading characters of the south- 
ern states, who promised him everywhere as sincerely cordial and 
enthusiastic greetings as two years before had marked his triumphal 
progress through New England. 

The carriao^e in which he travelled was the one in which he usu- 
ally appeared on public occasions in the city ; it was built by a Phil 
adelphia mechanic, and is described as a " most satisfactory exhibi 
42 



330 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tion of tlie progress of American manufactures." * It was drawE 
by six liorses, wliicli liad been carefully selected for tlieir handsome 
appearance and probable capacities for endm-ance. He started 
from liis residence, in Market street, at twelve o'clock, witk Mr. 
Jefferson and General Knox, wlio escorted liim into Delaware, and 
Major Jackson, one of bis private secretaries, wlio was bis compan- 
ion until be returned to tbe metropolis. 

At Annapolis, wbere be arrived on tbe morning of tbe twenty- 
fiftb of Marcb, be remained two days. An accident on tbe Severn 
caused a great deal of anxiety for a few bours. Tbe vessel wbicb 
contained tbe President and bis suite entered tbe river about ten 
o'clock on a dark, rainy and windy nigbt, and soon after struck on 
a bar, wbere sbe remained until dayligbt. Frequent signals of disi 
tress were made, but it was found impossible to go to ber rebef 
On arri\dng in town in tbe morning be was met by tbe entu'e popu- 
lation, and before bis departure was entertained at pubHc dinners 
and a ball. Tbe Governor of Maryland, on tbe twenty-seventb, 
accompimied bim on bis way until be reacbed Georgetown. 

He remained a week at Mount Vernon, and tben proceeded on 
bis journey. At Fredericksbm-g be dined witb bis old friends and 

* This carriage has been carefully preserved by an eminent citizen of Philaclolphia, in a house 
built expressly for its reception, in Tvhich it has remained half a century. Mr. Watson is mis- 
taken in supposing it was removed to New Orleans, as mentioned in his "Annals," i. 581, and 
also in the suggestion that it was a present from Loms XVI., or that it had been the property of 
Governor Penn. The " state coach " used in New York was built in that city. In this he made 
his journey through New England. The only other carriage for six horses which Washington 
owned while President is the one above referred to, built by a Mr. Clark of Philadelphia. 

Referring to the simplicity of the President's equipage and the modest style in which he 
travelled, a contemporary journal quoted the following passage from M. Flcchier's oration on the 
great Marshal de Turenne : " He strives to conceal himself, but his reputation discovers him. lie 
marches without a train of attendants, whilst every man, in his own mind, places him upon a 
triumphal car. As le passes by, the enemies he has conquered are reckoned, and not the ser- 
vants who follow him. Alone as he is, we imagine him surrounded in all places with his virtues 
and victories. There is something extremely noble in this elegant simplicity ; and the less haughty 
he is, the more venerable he becomes." 



THE SOUTHERN TOUR. 331 

neighbors, wliom lie was always tappy to meet, and witli whom, 
Chancellor Wythe informs us, he delighted to recall the scenes of 
his youth and earlier manhood, which he contemplated, with their 
associations, with feelings of the tenderest interest. He arrived in 
Richmond at two o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, the eleventh 
of April, and an immense assemblage of citizens greeted him with 
acclamations as he passed along the streets, and the military signal 
ized his presence with salutes of artillery. In the evening the city 
was brilliantly illuminated, and the two days during which he re- 
mained there were surrendered by all classes to a proud enjoyment ; 
for the Virginians regarded Washington as their especial glory, and 
exulted in all his triumphs as sharers of his greatness. At Peters- 
burgh, and at Halifax, Newbern,* Wilmington, and other places 
in North Carolina, he was received with every possible demonstrar 
tion of attachment by the authorities and the people. The military 
companies of Wilmington met him ten miles from the city, and a 
large proportion of the inhabitants went out between five and six 
miles to join the procession which welcomed him to that ancient 
town. The next day he accepted an invitation to a public dinner, 
and in the evening attended a ball at which there was an unprece- 
dented display of the fashion and beauty of the state. On his de- 
parture he was rowed across the Cape Fear river in an elegantly 
decorated barge by six masters of vessels. 

* At Ncwbcrn the President attended a public dinner and a ball at the old palace of Gover- 
nor Tryon, which was probably at th»t time the most splendid residence in America. An en- 
graving of it appears in Mr. Lossing's " Field Book of the Revolution," from original drawings 
made by Mr. John Hawks, the architect, in 1767, and preserved by his grandson, the Rev- 
erend Francis L. Hawks, D.D., LL.D., of New York. On a tablet in the vestibule were some 
lines in Latin, by Sir William Draper, which the late Governor Martin of North Carolina trans- 
lated, not very gracefully, as follows: 

" In the reign of a monarch •who goodness disclosed, 
A free, happy people, to dread tyrants opposed, 
Have to virtue and merit erected this dome. 
Mny the owner and houseliold make this their loved home, 
Wliere religion, the laws, an^ the arts, shall invite 
Future ages to live in sweet peace and delight." 



THE REPUBLICAN COURT 



TI. 



Chaelestois" at tMs period was tlie seat of a refined and gener* 
ous hospitality, and in social elegance was far in advance of any otlier 
city in tlie southern states * Always conservative, her inhabitants 
were slow to admit any innovations in manners, and the tasteful and 
rich costumes of the middle of the century were still worn there- 
fore by the more respectable classes, though numerous modifications 
had been generally adopted in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. 
Milliners and tailors corresponded dii-ectly with the inventors of 
dresses in London and Paris, and had little regard for the taste of 
our rej)ublican court. Women preferred the French fashions, and 
often improved upon them, but Dr. Eamsay assures us that they 
rarely had resolution enough to follow their own correct ideas in 
originating styles entirely new. Gentlemen were partial to blue, 
the product of their staple indigo, and most of them had at all 
times at least one coat of that color. Pantaloons had been intro- 
duced and were now worn by some of the younger men, but in a 
few years they were entirely laid aside, and breeches again adopted, 
notwithstanding the superior fitness of the more modern garment 
for so warm a climate. A keen sensibility on points of personal 
honor gave rise to frequent duels, so that more took place in South 
Carolina than in all the nine states north of Maryland ; but it was 
regarded as a consequence of this practice that there was a perva- 
ding propriety and com*tesy in society. Drunkenness, we have the 

* Innkeepers, we learn from Dr. Ramsay, complained that this virtue was carried to such an 
extent that their business was scarcely worth following. The doors of the citizens throughout- 
the state were opened to all decent travellers, and shut against none. The abundance of provi- 
sions on plantations rendered the exercise of hospitality convenient, and the avidity of country 
people for hearing news made them rather seek than shun the calls of strangers. The state 
might be travelled over with very little expense by persons furnished with letters of introduc- 
tion, or even without them, by calling at the plantations of private gentlemen on or near th« 
roads. 



THE SOUTHERN TOUR. 333 

authority of Dr. Ramsay for believing, " miglit be called an endemic 
vice " tbere, and lie finds for it an apology in tlie qualities of the 
atmosphere. Periodical races, hunting and fishing, and luxurious 
and protracted dinners, occupied the attention of old and young, 
while in dancing and music there was a more common proficiency 
than in any other part of the country. The Duke de la Eochefou- 
cauld Liancourt observed that from the hour of four in the after- 
noon the people of Charleston rarely thought of any thing but plea- 
sure and amusement ; they had two gaming houses, and both were 
constantly full ; many of the inhabitants, having been abroad, had 
acquired a greater knowledge of European manners and a stronger 
partiality to them than were found in the north, and foreign modes 
of life were consequently more prevalent. The women were more 
lively than he had seen elsewhere, and took a greater share in the 
commerce of society, but without any lessening of modesty or delicate 
propriety in then* behavior. They were interesting and agreeable, 
but perhaps not quite so handsome as those of Philadelphia. 

III. 

The President arrived in Charleston on Monday the second day 
of May. A twelve-oared barge, manned by thirteen captains of 
American ships, conveyed him, with several of the most distinguish- 
ed gentlemen of the state, from Hadrill's Point, and accompanying 
barges, containing a band, with instruments, and singers, greeted him 
with triumphal airs and songs, while a large procession of gaily 
caparisoned boats gave to the river a brilliant and beautiful aj)pear- 
ance. On landing he was received by Governor Pinckney, the 
intendant and wardens of the city, the society of the Cincinnati, 
and the military of the district, all of whom attended him in pro- 
cession, amid the ringing of bells, the fii'ing of cannon, and the ac- 
clamations of the people, first to the Exchange, where he was wel 



834 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

coined in a formal address, and tlien to tlie house prepared for liis 
reception. 

He remained in Charleston a week, and every day received 
evidences of the affectionate admu'ation and respect of the people. 
The merchants were foremost in renderins^ him honor. In their 
address to him they said, " Were it possible for your fellow citizens 
to omit doing justice to your merits, the testimony of other nations 
would evince their neglect or ingratitude — the whole world con- 

cui'ring in the same opinion of you Sensible of the numerous 

blessings our country has derived from your wise and judicious ad- 
ministration, we feel animated with the most lively sentiments of 
gratitude towards you ; suffer us, then, to represent to you the feel- 
ings with which we are impressed, by assuring you that we yield 
to none in sincere respect and attachment to your person ; and we 
earnestly implore the Almighty Father of the universe long to pre- 
serve a life so valuable and dear to the people over whom you pre- 
side." He answered, " Your congratulations on my arrival in South 
Carolina, enhanced by the affectionate manner in which they are 
offered, are received with the most grateful sensibility. Flattered 
by the favorable sentiments you express of my endeavors to be use- 
ful to our country, I desire to assure you of my constant solicitude 
for its welfare, and of my particular satisfaction in observing the 
advantages which accrue to the highly deserving citizens of this state 
from the operations of the general government. I am not less in- 
debted to you for your expressions of personal attachment and re- 
spect: they receive my best thanks, and induce my most sincere 
wishes for your professional prosperity, and your individual hap- 
piness." 

On Wednesday evening he attended the corporation ball, at 
which there were more than two hundred and fifty women, many 
of whom wore sashes and ribbons emblazoned with his portrait and 



THE SOUTHEKN JOUK. 335 

witli appropriate inscriptions. He entered tlie room with Governor 
Pinckney, Senators Izard and Butler, and several other public char- 
acters, and after being seated a few moments arose, and passing round 
the rapidly form-ed circle, saluted every lady, " which gave particu- 
lar satisfaction, as every one was anxious to have a good view of 
him." The City Hall was elegantly decorated for the occasion. 
The pillars were entwined with laurels and flowers, and the walls 
festooned with banners and adorned with pictures.* 

On Thursday he dined with a large party at Governor Pinck- 
ney's, and in the evening attended a concert by the Saint CeciHa 

* While these sheets ai-e passing through the press I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. E. A. 
Duyckinck for a volume of very interesting " Reminiscences of Charleston," just published by 
the venerable and accomplished Mr. Charles Fraser, of that city, who at the time of Washington's 
visit was a pupil in the Charleston College. I have had the happiness of some personal acquaint- 
ance with Mr. Fraser, and with the dignified circle comprising the club before which his de- 
lightful memoir was read, previous to its appearance in print. Charleston may well be proud 
of such a " clarum et venerabile nomen," and may see preserved in this distinguished artist, 
scholar, and gentleman, a type of her best society in her palmiest days. His present perform- 
ance is very similar in its character to President Duer's " Discourse on Kew York at the Close 
of the Last Century." Describing the events mentioned in the text he says : " General Wash- 
ington's visit to Charleston was made on the twenty-first of May, 1Y91, and amidst every recol- 
lection that I have of that imposing occasion, the most prominent is of the person of the great 
man, as he stood upon the steps of the Exchange, uncovered, amidst the enthusiastic acclamations 
of the citizens. I remember that the place prepared for his accommodation was that large three- 
story double house in Church street, a few doors north of Tradd street, then owned by Judge 
Heyward, and said to be superbly furnished for the occasion. He remained here but one week, 
but it was a week of continual rejoicing and festivity. Every attention that hospitality, public 
and private, could devise, was shown him, and it must have been very gratifying to the citizens 
of Charleston to receive from General Washington himself, on h'is departure, the warm acknowl- 
edgments which those attentions had won from his heart. One of the civilities which he received 
was a splendid concert and ball, given at the hall of the Exchange. On that occasion the ladies 
wore fillets, or bandeaus, of white ribbon, interwoven in their head-dress, with the head of 
■ Washington painted on them, and the words ' Long live the President,' in gilt letters. Every 
hand that could hold a pencil, professional or amateur, was enlisted to furnish them. But that 
which proved the most lasting memorial of his visit was the whole length jiortrait, for which the 
city council requested him to sit to Colonel Trumbull, and which now adorns the City Hall." Mr. 
Fraser, it will be perceived, makes a slight mistake in the date, and another in referring to the 
concert and the ball as having occurred the same evening. Contemporary letters and journals 
authorize different statements. 

Some very interesting and carefully studied views of society in Charleston at the close of the 
Revolution mav be found in Dr. Simms's historical romance of Katherine Walton. 



336 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Society, at whicli tliere was even a greater display of beauty anu 
elegance tlian at tlie corporation ball. 

On Friday lie dined with Major Pierce Butler, and on Saturday 
was entertained witli great splendor by tbe niercliants at the Ex- 
change. Among the invited guests were the Governor, the sena- 
tors and representatives of the state in Congress, the intendant and 
wardens of the city, resident officers of the national and state gov- 
ernments, members of the South Carolina legislature for the Charles- 
ton district, and the clergy of every denomination. The toast of 
the President was, " The commercial interests of Charleston," and 
after he retii'ed the company drunk with great enthusiasm, " The 
President of the United States : long may he live to enjoy the praises 
of a grateful people ! " The President left the Exchange at eight 
o'clock, and proceeded to the City Hall, to view the exhibition of 
fire- works. He afterward rode with Mr. Izard to the houses of sev- 
eral gentlemen, before returning to his lodgings. 

On Sunday he attended divine service, in the mprning and after- 
noon, and dined in a private manner with General Moultrie. 

IV. 

The President left Charleston at six o'clock on Monday morning, 
the ninth of May, escorted to Ashley Ferry by a large cavalcade, 
in which were the Governor, senators, members of the Cincinnati, 
and many other distinguished citizens. At Perrysburg he was met 
the next day by a committee from Savannah, and, with General 
Wayne, Major Butler, Mr. Baillie, and Major Jackson, was conduct- 
ed on board a richly decorated boat in which the party were rowed 
down the river, by nine sea captains, dressed in light blue silk jack- 
ets, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, and round hats with 
black ribbons, inscribed with " Long live the President," in golden 
letters. Ten miles from the city they were niet by other barges, 



THESOUTHERNTOUR 337 

fi'om one of wliicL. a company of gentlemen sung tlie popular song, 
" He comes, tlie hero comes ! " As they drew near tlie harbor every 
vessel and all the shore were discovered to be thronged with peo- 
ple. "When the President stepped on the landing he was received 
by General James Jackson, who introduced him to the Mayor and 
aldermen, and he was soon after conducted in the midst of a proces- 
sion through crowds of spectators to the house prepared for his ac- 
commodation in St. James's Square. The same evening he dined 
with the' city authorities, and a large number of other gentlemen, at 
Brown's Coffee House. Cannons were fired during the day, and at 
night the streets and the shipping were brilliantly illuminated. On 
Friday he dined with the Cincinnati of the state of Georgia, and 
attended a ball. On Saturday, accompanied by General Mcintosh, 
who had been second in command, under General Lincoln, in storm- 
ing them, he examined the remaining traces of the lines constructed 
by the British for the defence of Savannah in 1779, and dined with 
two hundred citizens and strangers under a beautiful arbor, sup- 
ported by numerous columns and ornamented with laurels and bay 
leaves, erected on an elevation which commanded a view of the 
town and the harbor. 

It has frequently been said of Washington that " no man in the 
army had a better eye for a horse," and many of his letters show 
that he was by no means indifferent as to the qualities or treatment 
of his stud, during the war or afterwards. A tour of nineteen hun- 
dred miles with the same animals was a severe test of their capaci- 
ties, and before reaching Charleston he wrote to Mr. Lear that 
though, all things considered, they had got on very well, yet his 
horses were decidedly worsted, and if brought back would " not 
cut capers as they did on setting out." On the thirteenth of May 
he says in a letter to the same correspondent, " I shall leave this 
place to-morrow; my horses, especially the two I bought just before 
43 



338 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

I left Philadelpliia, and my old wMte horse, are mucL worn down 
and I have yet one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles of 
heavy sand to pass before I fairly get into the upper and firmer 
roads." 

On the way to Augusta he stopped to dine with the widow of 
his old friend and companion in arms, General Greene, at her seat 
called Mulberry Grove. On "Wednesday, the eighteenth. Governor 
Telfair and the principal officers of the state . eft the capital, with a 
numerous train of citizens, and proceeded five miles toward Savan- 
nah to meet him, and he was conducted to his lodgings accompa- 
nied by thousands of people, who filled the air with joyous accla- 
mations. That dajrhe dined with a large party at the Grove, the 
Governor's private residence, near Augusta, where Mrs. Telfaii- as- 
sembled the ladies of the town to meet him at a ball in the evening ; 
on Thursday he received and answered an address from the people, 
attended a public dinner, and was present at another ball ; on Fri- 
day he visited the academy and dined again with the Governor, and 
on Saturday started on his return, Augusta being the farthest point 
of his journey. 

Coming again into South Carolina he was conducted to Co- 
lumbia by General Winn, Colonel Wade Hampton, and a large 
number of other citizens, and the next day dined with more than 
two hundred of the principal men and women of the town and 
neighboring country at the state house, and in the evening attend- 
ed a ball. 

On Wednesday, the twenty-fifth, he dined at Camden, and on 
the following morning visited the grave of the Baron de Kalb, the 
places where the British redoubts had been erected, Hobkhk HiU, 
where General Greene was attacked by Lord Eawdon, and the 
plains where General Gates was engaged by Lord Cornwallis in 
1T80. Passing through Charlotte, Sahsbury, Salem, Guilford, and 



THE SOUTHEEN TOUR. 339 

other towns, in all of wMcli the love and reverence of tlie people 
were exliibited in every variety of manner wMcli taste and inge- 
nuity could suggest, lie arrived at Mount Vernon on tlie twelfth, 
of June. 

He remained at his seat between three and four weeks, during 
which he was occupied with his private affairs, and, with Major 
L'Enfant and others, with the location of the new seat of government, 
on the banks of the Potomac. On Thursday, the last day of June, 
he started for Philadelphia, by way of Frederick, York, and Lan- 
caster, and arrived at the Presidential residence about noon on the 
sixth of July, having been absent nearly three months, and during 
that period performed a journey of eighteen hundred and eighty- 
seven miles. 

V. 

This tour was upon the whole very satisfactory to the President. 
In letters written soon after his return he says it was accomplished 
'' without meeting with any interruption, by sickness, bad weather, 
or any untoward accident. Indeed, so highly favored were we, 
that we arrived at each place where- 1 proposed to make my 
halt, on the very day I fixed upon before we set out. I am much 
pleased that I undertook this excursion, as it has enabled me to see 
with my own eyes the situation of the country through which we 
travelled, and to learn more accurately the disposition of the peo- 
ple than I could from any information I have been highly gra- 
tified in observing the good dispositions of the people. Industry 
and economy are becoming fashionable in those parts, which were 
formerly noted for the opposite qualities, and the labors of man are 
assisted by the blessings of Providence. The attachment of all 
classes of citizens to the general government seems to be a pleasing 
presage of their futm^e happiness and respectability." 



340 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

VI. 

While tlie President was absent in the sontli, Mr. Jefferson and 
Mr. Madison were making a tour in tlie nortli. Proceeding to New 
York, and up tlie Hudson to Albany, tliey \dsited tlie principal 
scenes of Burgoyne's misfortunes, — tlie fields of Stillwater, Sara- 
toga and Bennington, — and forts William Ilemy, George, Ticonde- 
roga, Crown Point, and otlier places memorable in our revolution- 
ary history. IMi". Jefferson amused liimself witli liis rod and gun, 
and indulged tliose tastes for natural liistory wLicli, if tlie condition 
of tlie country had not made him a politician, would probably have 
been his main distinction. 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 



As tlie period approached wHen electors of President and Vice 
President were again to be appointed in tlie several states, Wash- 
ington perceived with the deej)est regret that it would be necessary 
for him to allow his name to be used for a second term of four 
years. Jefferson, Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph, each address- 
ed him letters entreating a continuance of his administration of 
affairs. The sincere and earnest appeal of Hamilton was unanswer- 
able. This illustrious person, who for the greatness of his abilities 
and the importance of his public services has the highest place in 
our history, next to his chief and friend, wrote to him, " The im- 
pression is uniform that yom* declining would be deplorable as the 
greatest evil that could befall the country at the present juncture, 
and as critically hazardous to your own reputation — that your con- 
tinuance will be justified, in the mind of every friend to his country, 
by the evident necessity for it. It is clear, says every one with 
whom I have conversed, that the affau'S of the national government 
are not yet firmly established ; that its enemies, generally speakmg, 
are as inveterate as ever ; that their enmity has been sharpened by 
its success, and by all the resentments which flow fi'om disappointed 
predictions and mortified vanity ; that a general and strenuous effort 
is making, in every state, to place the administration of it in the 



342 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

hands of its enemies, as if they were its safest guardians ; that the 
period of the next House of Eepresentatives is likely to prove the 
crisis of its permanent character; that if you continue in office, 
nothing materially mischievous is to be apprehended, while if you 
quit, much is to be dreaded ; that the same motives which induced 
you to accept originally ought to decide you to continue tUl matters 
have assumed a more determined aspect ; that it would have been 
better, as it regards your own character, if you had never con- 
sented to come forward, than now to leave the business unfinished 
and in danger of being undone ; that in the event of storms arising, 
there would be an imputation either of want of foresight or want 
of firmness ; and, in fine, that on public and personal accounts, on 
patriotic and prudential considerations, the clear path to be pursued 
by you will be, again to obey the voice of your country, which it 
is not doubted will be as earnest and as unanimous as ever. On this 
last point, I have some suspicion that it will be insinuated to you, 
and perhaps (God forgive me, if I judge hardly,) with design to 
place before you a motive for declining, that there is danger of a 
division among the electors, and of less unanimity in their suffrages 
than heretofore. While your first election was depending, I had 
no doubt that there would be characters among the electors, who, 
if they durst follow their inclinations, would vote against you, 
but that in all probabihty they would be restrained by an appre- 
hension of public resentment ; that nevertheless it was possible a 
few straggling votes might be found in opposition, from some head- 
strong and fanatical individuals ; that a circumstance of this kind 
would be in fact, and ought to be estimated by you, as of no impor- 
tance, since there would be sufficient unanimity to witness the gen- 
eral confidence and attachment towards you. My view of the fu- 
ture accords exactly with what was my view of the past. I believe 
the same motives will operate to produce the same result. The 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. ' 343 

dread of public indignation will be likely to restrain tlie indisposed 
few. If they can calculate at all, they will naturally reflect that 
they could not give a severer blow to their cause than by giving a 
proof of hostility to you. But if a solitary vote or two should ap- 
pear wanting to perfect unanimity, of what uioment can it be ? 
Will not the fewness of the exceptions be a confirmation of the de- 
votion of the community to a character which has so generally 
united its suffrages, after an administration of four years, at the head 
of a new government, opposed in its first establishment by a large 
proportion of its citizens, and obliged to run counter to many pre- 
judices in devising the arduous arrangements requisite to public 
credit and pubhc order ? Will not those who may be the authors 
of any such exceptions, manifest more their own perverseness and 
malevolence than any diminution of the affection and confidence of 
the nation ? I am persuaded that both these questions ought to be 
answered in the affirmative, and that there is nothing to be looked 
for, on the score of diversity of sentiment, which ought to weigh 
for a moment. I trust, sii', and I pray God, that you will determine 
to make a further sacrifice of yom* tranquillity and happiness to the 
public good." 

Washington's re-election was unanimous, and on the fourth of 
March, 1793, he took the oath of office in the hall of the senate, iu 
the presence of the members of the cabinet, various public officers, 
foreign ministers, and such other persons as could be accommodated. 
In his speech to Congress he expressed the pleasing emotion with 
which he received this renewed testimony of the approbation of the 
people. While however it awakened his gratitude for aU those in- 
stances of affectionate partiality with which he had been honored 
by his country, it could not prevent an earnest wish for that retire- 
ment from which no private consideration could ever have torn 
him ; " but," he continued, " influenced by the belief that my con- 



344 • THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

duct would be estimated according to its real motives, and tliat the 
people would support exertions having nothing personal for their 
objects, I have obeyed the suffrage which commanded me to resume 
the executive power, and I humbly implore that Being on whose will 
the fate of nations depends, to crown with success our mutual en- 
deavors for the general happiness." 

II. 

Philip Feekeau had been an intimate friend of Mi*. Madison 
while they were classmates in the college of Princeton. We do not 
know at what time he became acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, but 
it was probably during the summer after the organization of the 
government, and he appears from the beginning to have concurred 
in his political ideas. Freneau was editor of the Daily Advertiser, 
published in New York, when, on the seventeenth of August, 1791, 
he was appointed translator of the French language for the state 
department, and he soon after removed to Philadelphia. The place 
is said to have been a sinecure, as other clerks in the office were 
familiar with the French language, which was also spoken and writ- 
ten with fluent elegance by Mr. Jefferson. But Freneau made 
himself useful to the secretary, if not to the government, by estab- 
lishing in the following October the National Gazette, a journal in 
which were given the first examples of that partisan abuse which 
has ever since been the shame of American politics. In it Mr. Jef- 
ferson was continually referred to with expressions of fulsome adu- 
lation, and the public and private characters of Washington, Ham- 
ilton, Knox, Adams, and their associates, were vilified with unfalter- 
ing industry and malignity. The late Reverend Doctor Timothy 
D wight wrote to Oliver Wolcott, on this subject, soon after Wash- 
ington's second inauguration, " The late impertinent attacks on the 
chief magistrate are viewed with a general and marked indignation. 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 345-^ 

Freneau, your printer, linguist, and so forth, is regarded here as a 
mere incendiary^, or rather as a despicable tool of bigger incendia- 
ries, and his paper as a public nuisance. Happily all the writers 
of this side, whose productions I have seen, take effectual means to 
disappoint themselves, for the violence of their prejudices, the weak- 
ness of their arguments, and the indecency of then* sentiments, alike 
counteract the mischievousness of their designs." That the National 
Gazette was entii^ely under Mr. Jefferson's control appears never to 
have been doubted. In his old age Freneau marked a copy of it with 
the names of the writers of the most noticeable articles, alleging that 
he himself had tever assailed in any manner the spotless fame of 
the Father of his Country. To Dr. Francis, who became his physi- 
cian, he said it was among his greatest griefs that he had seemed 
to be an enemy of Washington, but that Mr. Jefferson had writ- 
ten or dictated whatever was reproacliful or calumnious of that 
exalted character in the Gazette. The pretences for the most vio- 
lent attacks on the President wfere his reserved manners, which 
were said to proceed from an affectation of royalty (he had not yet 
learned to make "bows" in a manner satisfactory to the demo- 
crats), and his failure to interest himself in support of some de- 
mand of the army. 

IIL 

The French revolution was the most gigantic and appalling 
illustration in history of the natural depravity of the human race. 
It was a legitimate and inevitable result of that sham philosophy 
which a profligate people were glad to accept in place of the stern 
morality of the Christian religion, and was brought about by the 
combined activity and determined will of many of the master in- 
telligences of that age, made skeptical by the corruptions of the 
church, and infidel by their own defiant pride. Harlequin atheists, 



34G THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

assuming the title of Christian teachers, and half educated and fee- 
Lie minded writers of literature, sensible of theu^ incapacity to 
acquire distinction in the competitions of excellence, are offering 
among us, as novelties, those sometime obsolete mockeries that kin- 
dled into a flame of passion the volatile and depraved nation which 
surpassed all others, first in disobedience and next in contempt of 
the divine law. Forgetful of the terribly literal fulfilment which 
France presented of the prophecy that " the nations which forget 
God shall be turned into hell," there are still found miserable crea- 
tures willing enough to brave all penalties for the base satisfaction 
of a transient notoriety. In the days of Washington this class was 
comparatively much, more numerous, and more dignified in talents 
and position. 

The French monarchy had been abolished ; whatever there was 
of private worth and public respectability in Paris had followed 
the king to the guillotine ; and it had been decreed by the conven- 
tion that there is no God. The interest excited in America by the 
commencement of the revolution became enthusiasm when our an- 
cient ally assumed the name and form of a republic. A people 
less honorable and sagacious might well have been carried away by 
their grateful affections and political sympathies, and in the tumult 
of conflicting opinion and storm of aggressive action, only the un- 
erring judgment and indomitable will of Washington, his defiance 
of foreign and domestic enemies, his immovable disregard of public 
clamor and private treachery, a sense and temper and justice which 
seemed above the capacity of human nature, preserved our country 
from anarchy and from becoming the fear instead of the hope of 
the world. Less easily appreciable by the common mind than his 
military conduct, the course which he pursued during this agitation 
displays his loftiest heroism and constitutes his best claim to the 
reverence of posterity. 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 347 

, "I persuade myself, " lie wrote to Patrick Henry, "it has not es- 
caped your observation tliat a crisis is approacliing wliicli must, if 
it cannot be arrested, soon decide whether order and good govern- 
ment shall be preserved, or anarchy and confusion ensue. I most 
religiously aver that I have no wish incompatible with the dignity, 
happiness, and true interest of the people of this country. My 
ardent desire is, and my aim has been, as far as depended upon the 
executive department, to comply strictly with all our engagements, 
foreign and domestic, but to keep the United States free from po- 
litical connections with every other country, to see them indepen- 
dent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want 
an American character, that the powers of Em^ope may be con- 
vinced we act for ourselves, and not for others. This, m my judg- 
ment, is the only way to be respected abroad, and happy at home." 

But a large proportion of the people, incapable of understand- 
ing how little the revolution in France resembled in principles our 
own war for independence, and never pausing to consider whether 
the inhabitants of that country were fit for self-government, did 
not doubt the ultimate success of French republicanism, and were 
easUy led to regard all doubts in others as treason to the cause it- 
self, and to stigmatize Washington, Hamilton, Adams, and all who 
sympathized with them, as " anglomen " and " monarchists." The 
history of politics affords no parallel of the impudent attempt to 
persuade the citizens of the United States that a conspiracy had 
been organized among them for the establishment of a kingly gov- 
ernment. There was not the shadow of a shade of any suggestion 
of such a conspiracy in all the conduct and conversation of the 
parties alleged to be the conspirators, and no man of common sense 
now believes that their slanderers were ever actuated for a moment 
by any sincere suspicions or apprehensions on the subject. 

"With intelligence of the declaration of war by France against 



348 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

' Great Britain and Holland arrived M. Genet, tlie fii'st minister of 
tlie French republic. He landed at Charleston, his journey thence 
to Philadelphia' was a continual triumph, and his reception in that 
city such as might have gratified a conquering hero. Instead of 
receiving him with customary honors, it was resolved a foi'tnight 
before his arrival that the repubhcans should meet him at a dis- 
tance from the town and greet him with cheers. Citizen Peter S. 
Duponceau, secretary of a secret society of Frenchmen, which met 
at Barney McShane's, sign of the bunch of grapes, number twenty- 
three North Thii'd street, was particularly active in efforts to insure 
a demonstration that should strike with terror the " cowardly con- 
servatives, anglomen, and monarchists," led by the President. Citi- 
zen Philip Freneau, translating clerk in the department of state, and 
editor of the National Gazette, restrung his "Tyrtsean Ip-e" to 
celebrate the glories of the Parisian regicides, and at his office, two 
hundred and nine Market street, received subscriptions for the 
" French Patriotic Society." On the second day of May the French 
frigate 1' Ambuscade came up the river, saluting with fifteen guns a 
vast assemblage on the Market street wharf, and was answered with 
gun for gun, amid deafening huzzas. A cap of hberty appeared 
at her head, foremast, and stern ; her quarter galleries were deco- 
rated with gill anchors bearing the honnet rouge ; from the top of 
her foremast floated, " Enemies of equality, reform or tremble ; " 
from her mainmast, " Freemen, we are your friends and brethren ; " 
and from the mizzenmast, " We are armed for the defence of the 
rights of man." L' Ambuscade was a fit precursor of the ambas- 
sador. 

At length, soon after twelve o'clock, on the sixteenth of May, 
three discharges of artillery from this ship announced the approach 
of Genet, and a great concourse of people immediately started for 
Gray's Ferry, where he was waiting for them. As he di'ew near, 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 3J:9 

tlie tells of Christ clinrcli were rung, tliougli it could not have 
been with Bishop White's consent. An address, prepared by citi- 
zens Dallas, Rittenhouse, Duponceau, and others, was read amid 
the acclamations of thousands. The minister was equally delighted 
and astonished at so fraternal a welcome ; and when he read an ap- 
proving history of all these proceedings in a journal edited by a 
coniidential clerk of the Secretary of State, it was but natural that 
he anticipated only a slight opposition on the part of the govern- 
ment to the so evident wishes of the people.'^ 

On the same day, however, an address was presented to the 
President, signed by three hundred of the principal merchants and 
other men of substance and acti^dty, residing in the city, declaring 
that nothing was necessary to the happiness of the people of the 
United States but a continuance of peace, that the highest sense 
was entertained of the wisdom and goodness which dictated his 
recent proclamation of neutrality, and that the signers would not 

* In -what degree Mr. Jefferson -was responsible for the gross abuse of Wasbington in Freneau's 
National Gazette, and for the vulgar and insolent hostility of that journal to the policy and 
measures of Washington's administration, "we are sufficiently informed by himself, Freneau's 
paper continually denied to Washington both capacity and integrity, and three copies of every 
number were regularly sent to the Chief, who could not forbear speaking to Mr. Jefferson on this 
abusive conduct of his clerk, and requesting him, as a member of his cabinet, to administer to 
Freneau some rebuke. Mr. Jefferson tells us in his "Anas " what course he chose to pui'sue. At a 
cabinet council, he says, Washington remarked that " That rascal, Freneau, sent him three copies 
of his papers, every day, as if he thought he (Washington) would become the distributor of 
them ; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him : he ended in a 
high tone." Again, speaking of the President, Mr. Jefferson says, " He adverted to a piece in 
Freneau's paper of yesterday ; he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that 
there had never been an act of the government, not meaning in the executive line only, but in 
any line, which that paper had not abused. lie was evidently sore and warm, and I took his 
intention to be, that I should interpose in some way with Freneau, perhaps withdraw his ap- 
pointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our con- 
stitution, which was galloping fast into monarchy, and has been checked by no one means so 
powerfully as by that paper. It is well and universally known that it has been that paper which 
has checked the career of the monocrats," &c. 

Freneau at this period appears to have been living in very good condition ; and at his " seat, 
near the city," we read of his giving entertainments to large parties of democrats, at one of 
which were the officers of a regiment, the governor of the state, tfcc. 



350 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

only pay to it themselves the strictest regard, but discountenance 
in the most pointed manner any contrary disposition in others. 
Washington replied with his usual dignity and judgrnent, trusting 
that the people would evince as much prudence in preserving peace 
at that critical juncture as they had previously displayed valor in 
vindicating their just rights. 

On the eighteenth an addi^ess from the democrats was offered 
to Genet, at the City Tavern, by Charles Biddle and others, -with 
tumultuous exhibitions of popular enthusiasm ; and on the twenty- 
third a public dinner was given at Oeller's hotel, at which the min- 
ister is said to have sung, " with great energy and effect, a song 
adapted to the occasion and replete with truly patriotic and repub- 
lican sentiments." Soon after, the honnet rouge was placed on his 
head, and subsequently, in turn, upon the head of each person at 
the table, every one offering, while sensible of its inspii'ation, a 
"patriotic sentiment." No such "frenzy," to use Mr. Jefferson's 
favorite expression, has ever since been known in America. 

Democratic societies were founded in imitation of Jacobin clubs ; 
every thing that was respectable in society was denounced as aris- 
tocratic ; politeness was looked upon as a sort oi'lese repuhlicanisme ; 
the common forms of expression in use by the sans culottes were 
adopted by their American disciples ; the title citizen became as 
common in Philadelphia as in Paris, and in the newspapers it was 
the fashion to announce marriages as partnerships between citizen 
Brown, Smith, or Jones, and the citess who had been wooed to such 
an association. Entering the house of the President, citizen Genet 
was astonished and indignant at percei\ing in the vestibule a bust 
of Louis XVI., whom his friends had beheaded, and he complained 
of this " insult to France." At a dinner, at which Governor Mifflin 
was present, a roasted pig received the name of the murdered king, 
and the head, severed from the body, was carried round to each of 



1^^ 




MAI© ™o <& IS K' H '2r 



.« CrjTfTOA' 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 351 

tlie guests, who, after placing the liberty cap on his own head, pro- 
nounced the word " Tyrant ! " and proceeded to mangle with his 
knife that of the luckless creature doomed to be served for so un- 
worthy a company. One of the democratic taverns displayed as 
a sign a revolting picture of the mutilated and bloody corpse of 
Marie Antoinette. 

The extraordinary conduct of Genet, crowned with his auda- 
cious appeal from the government to the people, is fully detailed 
in the best histories we have of those times. It was the adminis- 
tration of Robespierre, the Reign of Terror, which he represented, 
and for which the democrats claimed the unhesitating and unques- 
tioning support of this country. The President at length com- 
plained of him, and he was recalled, but a change of factions hav- 
ing occurred in the republic of homicides, he did not deem it 
expedient to return, and, marrying Cornelia Tappan Clinton, a 
daughter of the governor of New York, he selected a home in 
that state, and ever afterwards resided there.* 

* It is but justice to say that this celebrated person was possessed of eminent capacities and 
accomplishments, and that his official conduct in this country has been defended with ability and 
eloquence. He was a member of one of the first families of France, and his father was for the long 
period of forty-five years connected with the ministry of foreign affairs. One of his sisters was 
Madame Campan, so well known for her abilities and intimate relations with the royal family, 
and another was the beautiful Madame Anguie, mother-in-law of Marshal Key. The subject of 
this note was born on the eighth of January, lYGS, and such was his intellectual precocity that 
when but twelve years of age he received a gold medal-tind a flattering letter from Gustavus 
III. for a translation of the history of Eric XIV. into the Swedish language, with historical re- 
marks by himself. He became a member of several of the most distinguished learned societies 
of Europe, and from his boyhood was employed in honorable public offices, having when only 
fourteen been appointed translating secretary to Monsieur, eldest brother of the king, and since 
Louis XVni. He was attached to the embassies of Berlin, Vienna, London, and St. Petersburg, 
and remained in Russia five years as charge d'affaires. His indignant protest against an order by 
the empress to leave her dominions, when Louis XVI. was dethroned, won for him a flattering 
reception by the revolutionary government on his return to Paris, and he was made adjutant 
general of the armies of the republic, and minister to Holland ; but a belief that he would be 
more useful in America causred him to be sent .to this country as Minister Plenipotentiary and 
Consul General. With Mr. Jefferson he was very intimate, notwithstanding the position.of that 
eminent character in the cabinet of Washington, until circumstances rendered such au intimacy 



352 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

During tlie remainder of Ms administration, "Washington and Lis 
friends were continually occupied in combating the influence of that 
party which now for the first time became capable of a formidable 
opposition, and which declared through its journals that it would not 
permit " the mushroom lordlings of the day, the enemies of Ameri- 
can as well as of French lib'erty, to vilify with impunity the patri- 
ots," Robespierre, Danton, Marat, Hebert, Barere, Couthon, Fouquier 
Tinville, Collot d'Herbois, and the rest of that abhorred, company, 
of whom the least infamous presented a spectacle more revolting 
to human nature than any monster ever known in other history. 

IV. 

The particulars of the French revolution from day to day filled 
the journals and formed the subjects of conversation in drawing- 
rooms and public and private assemblies of every description 
throughout the country. More than even the distinctions of whig 
and tory, patriot or loyalist, in the earlier days of the war of In- 
dependence, feelings for or against the rabble of Paris became the 
rule of friendship and of every sort of personal relation. AVhat- 
ever the inherited or acquired social rank, whatever the abilities, 
education, or manners, of men or women, attaching themselves to 
the Jacobin side, it would be absurd to say that they were not 
essentially unworthy and base. The true respectability of the na- 
tion was in the federal party, and it is a notorious and universally 
received truth that it continued to be so until that party was over- 
thrown. Of the federal party Washington was not- simj)ly a mem- 
no longer useful to the secretary. Genet's charge that he had used to him " a language official 
and a language confidential," suggests an explanation of what is most questionable in his own 
conduct. M. Genet was twice married. His second wife was a daughter of Mr. Osgood, the 
fii-st Postmaster General under the Constitution. lie was taken ill in consequence of riding 
twelve miles to attend a meeting of an agricultural society of which he was president, and Le^ 
fore which he was appointed to deliver an address, and died, at his place in Greenbush, neat 
Albany, on the fourteenth of July, 1834. 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 353 

ber or a disciple, as has sometimes been alleged ; lie was its founder, 
its head, its front, its very soul. 

In the smnmer of IT 9 4 occurred the insurrection in the western 
counties of Pennsylvania. The gradual growth of the spiiit of 
discontent, which here culminated in organized rebellion, had for 
many months excited the most painful reflections and apprehensions 
among wise and patriotic men, in the metropolis, and in all the 
states. Washington wrote on the subject to Governor Henry Lee, 
of Virginia, that he considered the insurrection a fruit of the ac- 
tivity of the democratic societies, and congratulated with him on 
the fact that as far as his information extended it was viewed with 
indignation and abhorrence, except by those who had never missed 
of an o]Dportunity, by side blows or otherwise, to attack the admin- 
istration. ' When, by a course of action alike energetic and mas- 
terly, the insurgents were put down, the Chief wrote to John Jay : 
" That the self-created societies which have spread themselves over 
this country have been laboring incessantly to sow the seeds of dis- 
trust, jealousy, and discontent, thereby hoping to effect some revo- 
lution of the government, is not unknown to you ; that they have 
been the fomenters of the. western disturbances admits of no doubt 
in the mind of any one who will examine their conduct ; but, for- 
tunately, they precipitated a crisis for which they were not prepared, 
and have unfolded views which I trust wiU effect their annihilation 
sooner than it otherwise would have happened, at the same time 
that it has afforded an occasion for the people to show their abhor- 
rence of the result, and their attachment to the constitution and 
laws ; for I believe that five times the number of militia that was 
required, would have come forward, if it had been necessary, in 
support of them." 

To illustrate the feeling of the better class of people in this 
crisis, he says, with a patriotic exultation, that " there are instances 
45 



354 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

of general officers going at tlie head of a single troop ; of field offi- 
cers, when they came to places of rendezvous, and found no com- 
mand for them in that grade, tm'ning into the ranks and proceeding 
as private soldiers, under their own captains ; and of numbers, pos- 
sessing the first fortunes in the country, standing in the ranks as 
private men, and marching day by day with their knapsacks and 
haversacks at their backs, sleeping on straw, with a single blanket, 
in a soldier's tent, during the frosty nights which we have had, by 
way of example to others. Nay, more : many young Quakers, of the 
fii'st families, character, and property, not discouraged by the elders, 
have turned into the ranks and are marching with the troops." 

V. 

Me. Jeffeeson had retii-ed from the secretaryship of state a,nd 
had no longer an official connection with public aftau'S. He was 
succeeded by Mr. Edmund Eandolph, whose place in the cabinet 
was filled by William Bradford,"^' a young lawyer of spotless char- 
acter and splendid talents, who had pre^dously been Attorney Gen- 
eral and a Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. 

The result of the western insm'rection had an important effect 

* We linger with delight over a fame so beautiful and unsullied as that of William Bradford, 
and recall with a sentiment of melancholy that he died just as "his greatness was a ripening." 
From an interesting memoir of him by the late Horace Binney Wallace, we learn that he was 
born in Philadelphia in 1755, graduated at Princeton in 1772, was admitted to the bar in 1779, 
after having served some time in the army, with the rank of Colonel, and in 1780, when but 
twenty-five years of age, was appointed Attorney General of Pennsylvania. From this position 
he was promoted in August, 1791, to be one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the state; 
" but the splendor of his abilities," says Mr. Wallace, " the fame of his devotion to business, of 
his acute sagacity and sound judgment, and of his stainless integrity, had attracted the regard 
of that great personage who then administered the national councils, and who had become per- 
Eonally well acquainted with him during the war of Independence ; and on the twenty-eighth 
of January, 1794, Mr. Bradford, having previously resigned the office of judge, was commissioned 

by President Washington Attorney General of the United States He shared in an especial 

and marked degree the confidence of Washington, who respected a bharacter kindred to his own 
in the purity of its purposes, and adorned with all the accomplishments that render merit 
amiable." 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 355 

on tlie tone if not on the purposes of tlie democrats, and tlie feder 
alists contemplated tlie wise and successful exercise of power on tlie 
part of tlie executive witli unhesitating and undisguised satisfaction, 
not more as a vindication and support of law and a proof of tlie 
self-sustaining capacity of the government, than as a signal rebuke 
and humiliation of the intriguing faction which had hoped in a dif- 
ferent conclusion of the matter to find the means of entirely de- 
stroying the nation?s confidence in Washington and his friends. 
The feelings of the democrats were of course shared by Fatichet, 
the new French minister, and in his despatches to the government 
of the murderers, at Paris, he disclosed some secrets of theii' leaders 
which excellently illustrate the quahty of their patriotism. " Scarce 
was the commotion known," says the minister, referi'ing to this re- 
bellion, " when the Secretary of State came to my house ; all his 
countenance was grief; he requested of me a private conversation ; 
' It is all over,' he said to me ; ' a civil war is about to ravage our 
unhappy country ; four men, by their talents, their industry, their 
influence, their energy, may save it ; but, debtors of English mer- 
chants, they will be deprived of their liberty if they take the 
shghtest step ; could you lend them instantaneous funds sufficient 
to shelter them from English persecution ? ' This inquiry astonished 
me ; it was impossible for me to make a satisfactory answer ; you 
know my want of power, and my defect of pecuniary means ; I 
shall draw myself from the affair by some commonplace remarks, 
and by throwing myself on the pure and disinterested principles 
of the republic." 

The reference to " the pm-e and disinterested principles of the 
republic " must have struck Mr. Randolph as an example of such 
refined impudence as is rarely exhibited by the greatest adepts in 
that sort of display ; but the answer was probably conclusive as 
to the chances of obtaining any money from Mr. Eauchet. 



356 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Before Mr. Randolpli was appointed Secretary of State, Mr. 
Jefferson informs ns, in Ids "Anas," that lie liad a conversation with 
the President as to his fitness for that office. The President said, 
" I do not know what is thought of Mr. Randolph." The retiring 
premier remarks, " I avoided noticing the last observation, and he 
put the question to me directly. I then told him I went so little 
into society as to be unable to answer it." Yet Mr. Jefferson con- 
fesses in his account of this conversation : " I Icnew that the embar- 
rassments in his private affairs had obliged him to use expedients 
which had injured him with the merchants and shop-keepers, and 
affected his character for independence, and that these embarrass- 
ments were serious, iand were not likely soon to cease." 

In the beginning of 1795 Mr. Hamilton, the leader and master 
champion of the ideas of the respectable classes, resigned his office. 
The confused and complicated facts of our financial condition, fur- 
nished from a thousand different sources, had come from his hand 
solidified and transparent ; and with consummate genius and judg- 
ment he had so organised the treasury that but little was left for 
his successors to do except to execute his simple and comprehensive 
plans. The insufficiency of his salary for the support of a numer 
ous family was the immediate and perhaps principal reason for his 
withdi-awal from the administration. He was succeeded by Mr. 
"Wolcott. General Knox, for similar causes, had resigned a few 
weeks before, and his place had been filled by Colonel Pickering. 
The original cabinet was thus entirely changed, and the new one 
consisted of Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, " Oliver Wol- 
cott, of the Treasury, Timothy Pickering, of War, and William 
Bradford, Attorney General. 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 357 

VI. 

The relations of tlie United States witli Great Britain were in i^^ 
a very critical condition, and war witli tliat country was ardently 
desired by the franco-democratic party, and dreaded in an equal 
degree by all those who intelligently endeavored to promote om* 
own best interests. The Jacobins were startled by the appointment 
of John Jay to be Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of London ; 
they denounced the opening of any negotiations with " our ancient 
enemy," and were in a rage that the Chief Justice should have 
been selected for such a duty. Mr. Jay sailed from New York in 
April, 1794, and on the seventh of March, 1795, the treaty which 
he had negotiated arrived in Philadelphia. The President, to pre- 
vent the preoccupation of the public mind, did not allow its provi- 
sions to be known by any person except Mi\ Randolph ; yet within 
two days after, a series of papers was commenced in Bache's pa- 
per, the new organ of the democrats, condemning it in the most 
opprobrious terms. As it had not been published in England, and 
the British minister had not received a copy of it, the President 
was surprised at these attacks, but expressed no suspicion as to the 
betrayal of his official confidence. When the treaty Was submitted 
to the Senate, Mr. Mason, a senator from Virginia, gave a copy of it 
to the same journal, The Aurora, and the whole country was quickly 
filled with its denunciation, and with abuse of the President, whom 
the democratic writers declared to be without any of the qualifica- 
tions of a statesman, or even of a soldier, and charged with being 
the tool of England, and with having fraudulently drawn money 
from the Treasury. "Will not the world be led to conclude," 
wrote one of these creatures, " that the mask of political hypoc- 
risy has been worn alike by a Caesar, a Cromwell, and a Wash* 
ington ? " 



358 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

The Chief was cahn and unmoved amid the storm, and, guided 
by a wisdom and discretion which now amaze the profoundest states- 
men who contemplate the circumstances under which he acted — 
administering a novel system of government, without any prece- 
dents to consult as to his constitutional powers and duties — pur- 
sued his course to the end, in a manner which was approved by his 
sense and his conscience, and has since been applauded by the 
unanimous voice of the nation. 

VII. 

* Me. "Wolcott was dining with Mr. Hammond, the British min- 
ister, at his country house near the city, on Sunday, the twenty- 
sixth of July. Mr. Hammond had recently married one of the 
beautiful Misses Allen, daughters of Mr. Andrew Allen, and he 
found that gentleman present, with one or two Englishmen, who 
were in the minister's confidence. After dinner Mr. Hammond took 
Mr. Wolcott aside and informed him that he had just received de- 
spatches from Lord Grenville, transmitting certain letters from M. 
Fauchet to the French government, which had been thrown over- 
board from the Jean Bart, a French packet, on the approach of an 
English vessel of war, but recovered by an Englishman who plunged 
into the water after them. Among these papers was the celebrated 
" Letter to the Minister on Politics," embracing the " precious con- 
fessions " of Mr. Eandolph, the American Secretary of State. It 
disclosed the entire policy of the democrats for the ruin of Wash- 
ington's administration. Eeferring to his previous despatch, in 
which he had detailed Mr. Kandolph's application to him for 
money, just before the breaking out of the insurrection in Pennsyl- 
vania, the minister exclaims, " Thus the consciences of the pretended 
patriots of America already have their prices ! It is very true, that 
the certainty of these conclusions, painful to be drawn, will forever 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 359 

exist in our arcliives ! What will be tlie old age of this govern- 
ment, if it is thus early decrepid ! " 

Mr. Bradford, the Attorney General, was ill, at his house in the 
country, where, on the twenty-ninth, Mr. Pickering and Mr. Wol- 
cott waited upon him, and they there drew up a letter to the Presi- 
dent, w^ho was then at Mount Vernon, requesting his immediate 
return to the capital. He arrived in Philadelphia on the eleventh 
of August, and Mr. Wolcott without delay communicated to him the 
letter and the circumstances under which he received it. 

The President concluded not to take any notice of this extraor- 
dinary revelation until the treaty should be disposed of, and in the 
mean time, as he could not consider Mr. Randolph guilty unheard, 
continued to treat him as if nothing had happened to lessen his 
confidence in his integrity. At a meeting of the cabinet for the 
consideration of the treaty, Mr. Randolph opposed its ratification ; 
but his opposition no longer had any influence on the mind of the 
President, who signed it on the fourteenth. 

On the nineteenth, while Washington was in conversation with Mr. 
Pickering and Mr. Wolcott, whom he had requested to be present, 
Mr. Randolph entered, and as he advanced into the room, he arose 
and presented to him the intercepted letter, requesting him to read 
it, and make such observations upon it as he thought proper. The 
Secretary perused it silently and with composure until he arrived 
at the passage which refers to his " precious confessions," when he 
manifested embarrassment, but proceeded to read the rest of the 
letter with careful attention. He made some desultory and un- 
connected observations on the several paragraphs, but betrayed 
no deep emotion. Perceiving however that he was confused, the 
President requested him to step into another room and consider 
what he had to say ; he did so, and after a few moments retui'ned, 
and said he would make his answer in writing. He immediately 



360 THE REPUBLICAN COURT 

resigned his office, promising the public an explanation of his 
conduct. 

M. Fauchet had been superseded by M. Adet, and had just gone 
to Newport to embark for France. Mr. Randolph followed him, 
and succeeded in obtaining a certificate of his innocence, but it was 
not regarded by even his own friends as of any importance. Ilis 
"Vindication" was a long time in making its appearance. In Octo- 
ber he wrote to the President that it was only delayed for permis- 
sion to publish one of his letters ; and he was answered that he was 
at " Hberty to pubHsh any and every private and confidential letter 
he had ever written him ; nay, more, every word he ever uttered 
to him or in his presence, whence he could derive any advantage." 
When at length the pamphlet came out, it was sarcastically de- 
scribed as reaUy a " vindication," not of his conduct, but of his 
resignation. 

Edmund Randolph had been an object of Washington's kindly 
mterest from his youth ; his powerful influence had caused him to 
be elected Governor of Vii'ginia ; he had appointed him succes- 
sively Attorney General and Secretary of State ; and had treated 
him in every way with unlimited confidence and almost parental 
fondness. The vulgar and violent abuse with which he was assailed 
in the disgraced minister's " Vindication," therefore incensed him 
to an extraordinary degree ; the occasion was one of those in which 
his feelings for a moment obtained a mastery over his habitual self- 
control. We have from unquestionable authority an anecdote il- 
lustrating this, which has not been hitherto published. Upon the 
settlement of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Virginia, 
some of Washington's lands fell within the foimer state, and the late 
Mr. James Ross of Pittsburg, was his agent for the sale of them. 
He came to Philadelphia to settle his account, and. sending word 
to the President that he would wait upon him, at his pleasure, was 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 3.61 

invited to breakfast the next morning. On arriving lie found ali 
tlie ladies — tlie Custises, Lewises, Mrs. Wasliington, and otliers — 
in tlie parlor, obviously in great alarm. Mr. Ross described tliem 
as gathered together in the middle of the room, like a flock of par- 
tridges in a field, when a hawk is in the neighborhood. Very soon 
the President entered, and shook hands with Mr. Ross, but looked 
dark and lowering. They went in to breakfast ; and after a little 
while the Secretary of War came in, and said, to Washington, 
" Have you seen Mr. Randolj^h's pamphlet ? " "I have," said Wash- 
ington, and raising his arm, and denouncing in terms of a strong 
and most emphatic kind its truth, brought his fist down upon the 
table with all his strength, and with a violence which made the 
cups and plates start from their places. Ross said he felt infinitely 
relieved ; for he had feared that something in his own conduct 
had occasioned the blackness of the President's countenance. The 
late Chief Justice Gibson had this from Ross himself; and he 
mentioned it at the house of an intimate acquaintance in Philadel- 
phia, as showing that, naturally, Washington was a man of extra- 
ordinary passions and sensibilities, though they were seldom exhib- 
ited with much vehemence. 

vm. 

If it sometimes happened that Washington failed of that self- 
control which is so difficult for a man of his intensely passionate 
and excitable nature, his watchfulness and powerful will generally 
enabled him to conceal his emotions and opinions from the most 
acute and determined inquisition. While Jay's treaty was under 
discussion, it was rumored in Philadelphia that a great mob in Lon- 
don had set the government at defiance, destroyed the residence of 
Mr. Pitt, and threatened the tower. The day this report reached 
46 



362 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

the city, the late Dr. Aslibel Green, wlio was one of tlie chaplains 
of Congress, dined with the President. When he entered the 
di'awing-room he found the company all engaged in animated con- 
versation on this subject, and Washington asked him if he had 
seen any newspaper allusion to it, remarking that he himself had 
not. Green replied, that as he was leaving his house, a few moments 
before, he had picked up a paper, just thrown into his entry, and 
hastily read an article in which the intelligence was recited. The 
rumor was calculated to produce a profound sensation, and it was 
of course discussed with much feeling at the table as well as in the 
drawing-room, but although the President listened to the conversa 
tion and joined in it with apparent freedom, neither Green nor any 
one could discover whether he thought it true or false, or wished 
it to be one way or the other. As little turbulence of soul was 
betrayed in his manner or his countenance as if the debate had 
been of some abstract question in philosophy. 

The democrats, finding themselves unable to answer the argu- 
ments of the federalists in sup23ort of the treaty, circulated a re- 
port through the country that the printed speeches of that side 
were known to be made by Englishmen, who had come over to 
work in that way, some at five guineas a speech, and some at as 
high as ten ; but that a speech could be written and printed by 
them at almost any price. 

The great speech upon the treaty, the greatest speech ever made 
in the Congress of the United States before Daniel Webster came 
into that body, was by Fisher Ames. Ames had written in a hu- 
morous letter to Jeremiah Smith that his speeches should be com- 
posed and delivered by some of the ingenious English gentlemen 
engaged in that business, and Smith had answered that his silence 
should be permitted, " by me, because any effort will injure your 
health ; by my friend Harj^er, because he talks all the time him- 



DISCONTENT AND SEDITION. 363 

self ; and by tlie Jacobins, because tliey never like your speaking." 
He was so feeble tbat it seemed impossible for him to take any 
active part in the business of the session, and it is doubtful whether 
he intended, up to the morning of the day when his famous oration 
was pronounced, to say more than a few words on the subject ; but 
the exhibitions of ignorance and dishonesty by the enemies of the 
government compelled him to that sudden and splendid attempt 
for the honor of his country, which, even in the imperfect and un- 
worthy report of it which was written out from memory by two 
of his friends, stands as a sufficient vindication of the traditional 
fame of his eloquence. John Adams heard it, and gave a graphic 
account of it in a letter to his wife. " Judge Iredell and I hap- 
pened to sit together. Our feelings beat in unison. ' My God, how 
great he is ! ' says Iredell ; ' how great he has been ! ' ' He has 
been noble,' said I. After some time L'edell breaks out, ' Bless my 
stars, I never heard any thing so great since I was born ! ' ' It is 
divine ! ' said I ; and thus we went on with our interjections, not to 
say our tears, tiU the end. Tears enough were shed. Not a dry 
eye, I believe, in the house, except of some of the jackasses who 
had occasioned a necessity of the oratory. These attempted to 
laugh, but their visages ' grinned horribly ghastly smiles.' They 
smiled like Foulon's son-in-law when they made him kiss his father's 
dead and bleeding head. The situation of the man excited compas- 
sion, and interested all hearts in his favor. The ladies wished his soul 
had a better body." 

The friends of the treaty were mobbed, and Mr. Jay himself 
was burned in ei^gj in several cities. In Philadelphia the rabble, 
led by some persons of respectable official or social positions, held 
a meeting in one of the public squares, and passed demagogue reso- 
lutions against it. The treaty was thrown from the select agitators 
on a stage to the canaille, who placed it on a pole, and proceeded 



364 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

with it to the house of the French minister, before which they per- 
formed some ceremony, and then to the house of the British min 
ister, before which they burned it, with huzzas and acclamations. 
The same was done before the residences of Mr. Bond and Mr 
Bingham, and the wretches broke some of the glass of the latter 
gentleman's windows. 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 



Feom the note-book of the late Mr. Horace Binney Wallace, 
of Philadelpliia, I am permitted to transcribe a record of some 
conversations witli his mother, Mi'S. Susan Wallace, in which that 
lady — so eminent for whatever is beautiful and noble in her sex — 
disclosed her recollections of Washington's habits, personal appear- 
ance, and manners. On the removal of the government to Phila- 
delphia, Mrs. Mary Binney, mother of Mrs. Wallace, resided in 
Market street, opposite to General Washington's — the door of her 
house a few paces further east. It was the General's custom, fre- 
quently, when the day was fine, to come out to walk, attended by 
his secretaries, Mr. Lear and Major William Jackson — one on each 
side. He always crossed directly over from his own door to the 
sunny side of the street, and walked down. He was dressed in 
black, and all three wore cocked hats. She never observed them 
conversing ; she often, vrondered and watched, as a child, to see if 
any of the party spoke, but never could perceive that any thing 
was said. It was understood that the aids were kept at regal dis- 
tance. General Washington had a large family coach, a light car- 
riage, and a chariot, all ahke — cream-colored, painted with three 
enamelled figures on each panel — and very handsome. He di-ove 



366 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

in the coach to Christ Church every Sunday morning, with two 
horses ; drove the carriage and four into the country — to Lands- 
downe, The Hills, and other places. In going to the Senate he 
used the chariot, with six horses. All his servants were white, and 
wore hveries of white cloth, trimmed with scarlet or orange. Mrs. 
Wallace* saw General Washington frequently at public balls. 
His manners there were very gracious and pleasant. She went 
with Mrs. Oliver Wolcott to one of Mrs. Washington's drawing- 
rooms. The General was present, and came up and bowed to 
every lady after she was seated. Mrs. Binney visited Mrs. Wash- 
ington frequently. It was Mrs. Washington's custom to return 
visits on the thii'd day : and she thus always returned Mrs. Bin- 
ney's. A footman would run over, knock loudly, and announce 
Mrs. Washington, who would then come over with ]\Ir. Lear. Mrs. 
Wallace met Mrs. Washington in her mother's parlor : her manners 
were very easy, pleasant, and unceremonious, with the character- 

* Mrs. Wallace, widow of Mr. John Bradford Wallace, and sister of Mr. Horace Binney, died 
on the eighth of July, 1849. The Rev. Herman Hooker, D.D., in an eloquent and appropriate tri- 
bute to her memory, says: "I cannot speak of her in terms suitable to my conceptions. No 
praise befits the character or the taste of such a person but a truthful and grateful mention of 
her virtues. These were so numerous and so marked that any just mention of them will seem 
to border on exaggeration. She was a model of a woman. Her elevation was such, that seen 
through tlie distance of a slight or formal acquaintance, it might be mistaken for pride or austerity 
But there are many persons of even humble condition who can testify with what ease and readi 
ness she could appreciate the feelings and merits of all. So various were her accomplishments, 
80 profound, ready, and discerning her mind, that whether approached by the most humble, the 
most refined and fashionable, or the most intelligent and learned persons, she was never at a loss 
to assume any manner, or join in any conversation, suitable to their taste and position. Her 
mind was conversant with principles, and from these she could start out on any subject, detect 
its nature, and define its limits. She was always entertaining and instructive. Nothing could 
be said in her presence which she would fail to appreciate justly. She was severelj'' just — 
severely conscientious. She had all the impulsiveness of woman, all the sensibilities of a culti- 
vated nature, yet all were under discipline and right control, and thus added grace, worth, and 
certainty, to all the virtues of life." Mrs. Wallace was born on Washington's birth-day, 1118, 
and was just entering society in the last years of his administration. Her husband was a nephew 
of Mr. Bradford, the second Attorney General of the United States. He was described by 
Daniel Webster as " one of the oldest, truest, and most valued of his friends." 



LIFEINTHECAPITAL. 367 

istics of otlier Yirgirda ladies. "When Washington retired from 
public life Mrs. Wallace was about nineteen years of age. 

The recollections of Mr. Richard Rush on this subject are in 
agreement with those of Mrs. Wallace. That accomphshed and 
distinguished gentleman has communicated to me a very graphic 
account of some interesting scenes, of which he was an observer, 
about the close of Washington's first administration. Looking 
upon the old Congress Hall, at the corner of Chestnut and Sixth 
streets, a few years ago, he says, "I recalled a scene never, no, 
never to be forgotten. It was, I think, in 1794 or 1795, that as" a 
boy I was among the spectators congregated at this corner, and 
parts close by, to witness a great public spectacle. Washington 
was to open the session of Congress, by going in person, as was his 
custom, to deliver a speech to both houses, assembled in the cham- 
ber of the House of Representatives. The crowd was immense. 
It filled the whole area in Chestnut street before the state house, 
extended along the line of Chestnut street above Sixth street, and 
spread north and south some distance along the latter. A way 
kept open for carriages, in the middle of the street, was the oilly 
space not closely packed with people. I had a stand on the steps 
of one of the houses in Chestnut street, which, raising me above 
the mass of human heads, enabled me to see to advantage. After 
waiting long hours, as it seemed to a boy's impatience, the carriage 
of the President at length slowly drove up, di^awn by four beauti- 
ful bay horses. It was white, with medallion ornaments on the pan- 
els, and the hvery of the servants, as well as I remember, was white 
turned up with red: at any rate a glowing livery — the entire dis- 
play in equipages at that era, in our country generally, and in Phil- 
adelphia in particular, while the seat of government, being more 
rich and varied than now, though fewer in number. Washington 
got out of his carriage, and, slowly crossing the pavement, ascended 



368 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

the steps of tlie edifice, upon the upper platform of which he 
paused, and, turning half round, looked in the dii^ection of a car- 
riage which had followed the lead of his own. Thus he stood for 
a minute, distinctly seen by every body. He stood in all his civic 
dignity and moral grandeur, erect, serene, majestic. His costume 
was a full suit of black velvet ; his hair, in itself blanched by time, 
powdered to snowy whiteness, a dress sword at his side, and his hat 
held in his hand. Thus he stood in silence ; and what moments 
those were ! Throughout the dense crowd profound stillness 
reigned. ISTot a word was heard, not a breath. Palpitations took 
the place of sounds. It was a feeling infinitely beyond that which 
vents itself in shouts. Every heart was full. In vain would any 
tongue have spoken. All were gazing, in mute unutterable admi- 
ration. Every eye was riveted on that form — the greatest, purest, 
most exalted of mortals. It might have seemed as if he stood in 
that position to gratify the assembled thousands with a full view 
of the father of then* country. Not so. He had paused for his 
secretary, then, I believe, Mr. Dandiidge or Colonel Lear, who got 
out of the other carriage, a chariot, decorated like his own. The 
secretary, ascending the steps, handed him a paper — probably a 
copy of the speech he was to deliver — when both entered the 
building. Then it was, and not until then, that the crowd sent, up 
huzzas, loud, long, earnest, enthusiastic." 

Of the simple manners of Washington and his family we have 
an interesting account in the Travels of Mr. Hemy Wansey, F. S. A., 
an English manufacturer, who breakfasted with them on the morn- 
ing of the eighth of June, IT 94. " I confess," he says, " I was struck 
with awe and veneration, when I recollected that I was now in the 
presence of the great Washington ; the noble and wise benefactor 

of the world, as Mii-abeau styles him When we look down 

from this truly illustrious character, on other pubhc servants, we 



LIFEINTHECAPITAL. 369 

find a glowing contrast ; nor can we fix our attention on any other 
great men, without discovering in them a vast and mortifying dis- 
similarity The President seemed very thoughtful, and was slow 

in delivering himself, which induced some to believe him reserved ; 
but it was rather, I apprehend, the result of much reflection, for he 
had to me an appearance of aftability and accommodation. He was 
at this time in his sixty-third year, but had very little the appear- 
ance of age, having been all his Hfe so exceedingly temperate. 
There was a certain anxiety visible in his countenance, with marks 

of extreme sensibility Mrs. Washington herself made tea and 

coffee for us. On the table were two small plates of sliced tongue, 
and dry toast, bread, and butter, but no broiled fish, as is the gen- 
eral custom. Miss Eleanor Custis, her grand-daughter, a very 
pleasing young lady of about sixteen, sat next to her, and next, 
her grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, about two years 
older. There were but shght indications of form, one servant only 
attending, who had no livery ; and a silver urn for hot water was 
the only expensive article on the table. . Mrs. Washington struck me 
as something older than the President, though I understand they 
were both born the same year ; she was short in stature, rather ro 
bust, extremely simple in her dress, and wore a very plain cap, 
with her gray hair turned up under it." This description of Mrs. 
Washington corresponds perfectly with that in her portrait by 
Trumbull, painted the previous year, and now in the Trumbull 
Gallery at 'New Haven. 

Mr. Wansey says her drawing-rooms were objected to by the 
democrats, " as tending to give her a supereminency, and as intro- 
ductory to the paraphernalia of courts." With what feelings the 
excellent woman regarded these democrats is shown in an anecdote 
of the same period. She was a severe disciplinarian, and Nelly 
Custis was not often permitted by her to be idle or to follow her. 
47 



370 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

own caprices. The young gii-l was compelled to practise at tlie 
liarpsicliord four or five lioui'S every day, and one morning, when 
she should have been playing, her grandmother entered the room, 
remarking that she had not heard her music, and also that she had 
observed some person going out, whose name she would much 
like to know. Nelly was silent, and suddenly her attention was 
arrested by a blemish on the wall, which had been newly j^ainted 
a delicate cream color. " Ah, it was no federalist ! " she exclaim- 
ed, looking at the spot, just above a settee; "none but a filthy 
democrat would mark a place with his good-for-nothing head in 
that manner ! " 

The public business so entirely occupied his time that Wash- 
ington had few opportunities of \asiting Mount Vernon. In 1793 
however he was there nearly three months, during the terrible pe- 
riod of the prevalence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia.* The 
disease broke out some time in August, but he continued at his 
post until the tenth of September. He wished to stay longer, but 
Mrs. Washington was unwilling to leave him exposed in such dan- 
ger, and he could not think of hazarding her life and the lives of 
the children by remaiaing — " the house in which we lived," he 
says, " being in a manner blockaded by the disorder, which was 
every day becoming more and more fatal." Two days after Wash- 
ington left Mr. Wolcott wrote to his father, " The apprehensions 
of the citizens cannot be increased ; business is in a great measure 
abandoned ; the true character of man is disclosed, and he shows 

* A Btriking picture of the pestilence in Philadelphia, in 1793, is contained in Brockden 
Brown's novel of Arthur Mervyn. In the history of that period the names of Stephen Girard, 
already a prosperous merchant, and Matthew Carey and Thomas Clarkson, are honorably con 
spicuous. Freueau complams that the physicians of the city fled from the danger — 

" On prancing steed, with sponge nt nose, 

From town behold Sangrado fly ; 
Cainplior and tar, where'er lie goes, 

The infected shafts of death defy — 
Safe, in an atmosphere of scents, 
lie loaves us to our own defence." 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. S71 

himself a weak, timid, desponding, and selfisli being — Tlie rav 
ages of tlie dreadful sickness are extending, with added circum- 
stances of terror and distress ; many now die without attendance. 
The kind attentions, the tears of condolence and sympathy, which 
alleviate pain, and in some degree reconcile the dying to their fate, 
are frequently omitted by the nearest friends and relatives ; when 
generously bestowed they are too often the price of life." Among 
the public characters attacked by the fever were Mr. "Willing and 
Colonel Hamilton, but they recovered. The officers of government 
were dispersed, and the President even deliberated on the propri- 
ety of convening Congress elsewhere ; but the abatement of the 
disease rendered this measure unnecessary, and near the close of 
November the scattered inhabitants returned to their homes, and 
Congress reassembled on the second of December. 

In 1794, his official duties not permitting him to make more 
than a flying visit to Mount Vernon, and Mrs. Washington decid- 
ing against a summer residence in the city, the President took a 
tiouse in Germantown, where, with his family, he remained during 
the months of July and August. * 

IL 

The old theatre in Philadelphia is described by Mrs. Adams as 
[uite equal to most of the theatres out of France. It was fre- 
. i^uently visited by the families of the President and Vice President 
Juring the seasons of 1791 and 1792. The new theatre, erected in 
the latter year, was not opened, in consequence of the yellow fever, 
until the seventeenth of February, 1794. The manager was Wig- 
nel], who is famous in the annals of the American stage, and he 
caused the house to be fitted up with a luxurious elegance hitherto 
unknown in this country. The principal actors were Fennell, 
Wliitlock, Harwood, I^.Ioreton, Darley, Mrs. Oldmixon, Mrs. Whit- 



372 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

lock, Mrs. Morris, and Mrs. Marshall. Fennell had won a bad fame 
jby his pecuniary extravagance, in Paris, and in Philadelj)hia he 
seemed to be as ambitious of social as of professional distinction.* 
Dunlap says " he was the idol of the literary youth of the city, and 
for a time revelled in the luxury of stylish living." His height 
was over six feet, and he had a remarkably handsome figure ; his 
complexion was light, with a blush for every occasion in which a 
blush could be graceful. He appeared in tragedy and genteel 
comedy, but was most successful and appeared most natural, ac- 
cording to Dunlap, in villains. Harwood was a very gentlemanly 
person, and had married Miss Bache, a grand-daughter of Dr. 
Franklin. Moreton was a native of New York, and had led a life 
of sino:ular vicissitudes. At one time he had been a cashier of the 
Calcutta Bank, in India. He was an excellent actor. Mrs. Old- 
mixon was the wife of Sir John Oldmixon, who had been celebrated 
in England as " the Bath beau," the equal in his day of Nash or 

* In " An Apology for the Life of James Fennell, written by Himself," the actor illustrates 
his own position in Philadelphia by the following anecdote: "While I was returning one morn- 
ing from rehearsal at the theatre, where I had been detained beyond my usual time," he says, 
" a gentleman, whom to my knowledge I had never seen before, called to me by name, ob- 
served that he was incapable of overtaking me, as I walked so fast, and begged me to stop. I 
did so till he came up. He then, in the most amiable manner, addressed me in these condescend- 
ing words : ' Mr. Fennell, I have long wished to be introduced to you, but having had no oppor- 
tunity, permit me to introduce myself. My name is Miffin : they call me Governor Mifflin. All 
I shall say to you at present is, that if you will come and dine with me at the Falls (Schuylkill) 
on Sunday next, I shall be happy to entertain you.' I replied to him, that I would honor myself 
by accepting the invitation, with the same frankness that made the offer so pleasing to my feel- 
ings. I attended, and had the pleasure of dining with many of the heroes of the revolution. I 
had the honor of entertaining five generals and other gentlemen at my house in the same even- 
ing. We supped; all went well; and we parted about one in the morning, apparently pleased 
with the amusement of the preceding hours. But the generous governor's feelings did not eni 
here ; from this day he honored me with intimate friendship. He requested me to breakfast 
dine, or sup with him, whenever I should be disengaged, with the general privilege of declaring 
when public business interfered. Our intimacy was founded upon the principle of the visitor'? 
asking. Are you at leisure ? and the visited saying, Yes, or No ; upon which answer each agreed 
to enter the house or retire. Never did I acknowledge so cordial a reciprocity of sentiment, un 
less I may be permitted to consider it as transferred to his amiable daughter and her no less 
tmiable associate." 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 373 

BrummelL In 1796 it was among tlie news paragi'aphs of a Lon- 
don journal, " Sir John Oldmixon, wliose equipage was once tlie 
gaze of Bond street, is now a gardener near PMadelpliia ; lie diives 
his own cabbages to market, in his own cart ; and his wife, formerly 
Miss George, sings at the theatre, and retm'ns in the conveyance 
which brought vegetables for sale from Germantown." The baro- 
net had ceased to be a leader in the world of fashion, but it is said 
t^at he still tapped and opened a snuff-box with a grace pecuharly 
his own. Mrs. Whitlock was a sister of Mrs. Siddons. John Jay 
writes to his wife on the thirteenth of April, 1794,* "Two even- 
ings ago I went to the theatre with Mrs. Eobert Morris and her 
family; 'The Gamester,' a deep tragedy, succeeded by a pretty 
joiece called 'The Guardian,' were played; the theatre was weU 
filled, and the performers appeared to give satisfaction ; Mi's. Whit- 
lock was of the number; she is a favorite, and in some respects 
with reason ; I do not think her equal to her sister ; it has been 
insinuated that Mrs. Siddons was envious of her powers — I doubt 
it." The Chief Justice adds that the company " is said to be com- 
posed of decent moral people." In various "professional excellence 
it must have been one of the finest companies ever in this country. 
Wansey, the English clothier, the evening after his breakfast 
at the President's, went to see " Every one has his Fault," and " 'No 
song, no Supper." He describes the theatre as " elegant and con- 
venient, and as large as that of Co vent Garden. To judge from 

* This was just before Mr. Jay's appointment as Envoy Extraordinary to tlie Court of Lon- 
don. In the letter quoted in the text he refers to some affection of Mrs. Jay's eyes, and says, 
" Tell me whether they have regained their strength and become as bright as ever." This ad- 
mirable woman's letters to her husband, during his absence, exhibit her careful management of 
his domestic concerns, and her cordial attention to his friends. Mr. Jay, after the completion of 
his English mission, was twice elected governor of the state of New York, and Mrs. Jay presided 
over the reunions at the executive mansion until her husband, in May, 1801, bade a final adieu 
to public life, and retired to his estate at Bedford, where she found the quiet happiness for 
which she had often sighed, but which she was not long to enjoy. She died in 1802, and was 
ouried at the family burial-place at Rye. 



374 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tlie dress and appearance of tlie company around me, and tlie actors 
and scenery," lie says, " I should have thought mysehf still in Eng- 
land ; the ladies wore small bonnets of the same fashion as those I 
saw in London — some of chequered straw ; many had their hair 
full di-essed, without caps, as with us, and very few had it in the 
French style ; the younger ladies appeared with theii* hair flowing 
in ringlets on theii* shoulders. The gentlemen had round hats, 
coats with high collars, cut quite in the English fashion, and many 
coats of striped silk." The motto over the stage was, "The eagle 
suffers httle birds to sing," which Yf ansey explains by saying that 
" when it was in contemplation to build this theatre the Quakers 
used all their influence with Congress to prevent it, as tending to 
corrupt the manners of the people and increase too much the love 
of pleasure, but they failed, and this motto from Shakspeare was 
chosen, to celebrate the triumph of the players." 

The theatre appears to have been prosperous under Wignell, 
and it was fashionable, though the manager incurred the displeasure 
of Mrs. Bingham, by refusing on any terms to sell her a private 
box, and she and her set but rarely attended.* 

* The venerable William B. Wood, now nearly eighty years of age, has just published an ex- 
tremely interesting voliune of " Personal EecoUections of the Stage," in which the difficulty be- 
tween- Jlrs. Bingham and Wignell is particularly stated. Mr. Wood has always merited and 
enjoyed the fame of a well-mannered and high-minded gentleman, and no member of his profes- 
sion perhaps ever maintained during a long life a more enviable position in society. Referring 
to this subject he says, " The business of private boxes came to us with the very opening of the 
theatre in 1Y93, when Mr. Wignell resisted it under circumstances very trying to him, and which 
nothing but his sense of the indispensable necessity to the permanent interests of the theatre 
would have induced him to do. Mrs. Bingham, in her day the chief leader in the fashion 
of our city, the wife of an early and valued friend of Wignell himself, a lady of great social and 
family influence, and very extensively connected, proposed for the purchase of a box, at any 
price to be fixed by the manager. She had passed much of her early married life in France and 
England, where she was uncommonly admired, and being a woman of exclusive and elegant 
tastes, was desirous to have the privileges which were allowed in the theatres with which she 
had been familiar abroad. She offered to furnish and decorate the box at her own expense; but 
it was an absolute condition that the key should be kept by herself, and no admission to it allowed 
*o any one except on her assent. Llr. Wignell had many strong inducements to accept this offer. 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 375 

For a long time tlie theatre was rivalled by tlie " grand circus " 
of a celebrated equestrian named Ricketts, who arrived in tliis 
country from Dublin, in IT 92. Wasbington and bis family went 
several times to see tbe performances of tbe Ricketts company. 
He was j^resent on tbe evening of tbe tbirteentb of July, 1793, 
wben an incident occurred wbicb Mr. Jefferson refers to in bis 
" Anas." According to Dunlap's Advertiser, Ricketts, being obbged 
in tbe middle of tbe performance to drink a glass of wine, was re- 
quired to give a toast, and instantly drank off a bumper " To tbe 
Man of tbe People," wbicb was received witb general and loud ap- 
plause. Mi\ Jefferson says Lear told bim, as an evidence tbat tbe 
federabsts were in tbe babit of writing in tbe character of tbeir 
adversaries, tbat tbe day after tbis bttle incident " Mrs. Washing- 
ton was at Mrs. Powell's, who mentioned to her tbat when tbe 

He was undertaking a new enterprise. He could name his own sum. It was a certainty. It 
would gratify an early friend, whose large fortune miglit prove of great value to him. He knew 
that it was probably the only condition on which he was likely to have either the presence, or 
perhaps the very cordial wishes of a fair, elegant, and influential woman, whose house was the 
rendezvous of the distinguished and really elegant foreigners whom the French revolution had 
then brought here. Her voice in the small world of fashion which Philadelphia then ackn9wl- 
edged, would be quite potential. He looked at the matter, however, with much more compre- 
hensive and philosophic regards. He knew that the theatre in a country Hke ours must depend 
entirely for permanent success, not upon individuals, however powerful, not upon clubs, cliques, 
factions, or parties, but upon the public alone. That in a country where the spirit of liberty is 
so fierce as in ours, such a privilege would excite from an immense class a feeling of positive 
hostility; and it made no difference in his view that the expression of it might be suppressed, 
which it was doubtful whether it would be, as the suspicion would be fatal. He saw that it 
must be a cardinal maxim of any American manager to act on the principles of his country's 
government, and on the recognition of feelings deeply pervading the structure of its society ; to 
hold, in short, all men ' free ' to come into his house, and ' equal ' while they continued to be and 
behave themselves in it. The country he well perceived has not, and cannot have any class 
which, as a body, possess even the claims to exclusive privileges which exist abroad, and which 
give a prestige impossible and unfit to be asserted or allowed for an aristocracy here ; an aris- 
tocracy which, with occasional excejjtions, must be one of money merely, the most despicable 
and poorest of all grounds of distinction. He therefore with great address, and with many ex- 
pressions of polite regret, declined the offers of his beautiful friend, and stuck steadily to his 
wisely settled system. The result was just as he anticipated. The lady, though not capable of 
l-esentment, and expressing her acquiescence in his view as a sound one, scarcely ever visited 
the theatre again; but the theatre itself was filled by a constant and satisfied pxiblic." 



376 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

toast was given tliere was a good deal of disapprobation manifested 
by tlie audience, many of whom put on tbeir hats and went out.*^' 
On inquiry he had not found this to be true, yet it was put into 
one of the papers, and wiitten under the character of a republican, 
though he is satisfied it is altogether a slander of the monocrats." 
It is very easy to estimate the value of such a story. The state- 
ment appeared in what Mr. Jefferson calls a "republican journal," 
and its editors would scarcely have been imposed upon under such 
circumstances by a federahst. 

* The art of pufBng seems to have been as well understood by the showTnen of that day as 
it is by their successors of our own. In one of the journals appeared the following ingenious 
account of one of the exhibitions of Mr. Ricketts: "Last Saturday there was at the circus a very 
splendid company, who all retired highly delighted. Among the rest, two respectable traders 
were observed to hold a very jDleasant conversation. Mr. T. ' Well, neighbor, you have flattered 
me to come here to throw away my half-dollar.' Mr. F. ' Have patience, friend, till the per- 
formance begins.' Mr. Eicketts enters, riding a single horse. T. ' Why, I could do that myself.' 
Mr. Ricketts stands on the saddle. F. ' Well, neighbor, could you do that ? ' 21 ' No : that may 
be worth a five-penny-bit to see, but it is not worth my half-dollar.' Mr. Ricketts dances a horn- 
pipe, in perfect time, to a band of music, the horse in a gallop. T. ' Oh, that's better still I that's 
worth eleven-pence.' Mr. Ricketts leaps very high, and always comes down on the saddle. 
F. ' And is not that worth another eleven-pence ? ' T. ' Yes.' Mr. Ricketts rides two horses in 
a gallop, and leaps over a whip backward and forward several times. T. ' Tliat 's three five- 
penny-bits — my half-dollar is gone.' Mr. Ricketts throws up three oranges, and keeps them in 
the air for several turns round the circus, still riding two horses, standing on the saddles, in full 
gallop; he then jumps roimd, with his face to the horses' tails, and performs the same feat 
F. ' Now I '11 begin to reckon : tliat 's a quarter-dollar.' Mr. Ricketts throws an orange very 
high, and receives it on the point of a small sword. F. ' Another quarter-dollar.' Mr. Ricketts 
hangs by one leg to the saddle, and sweeps the ground with his hands and the plumes of his cap ; 
then mounts on one foot, and stands on the saddle in an agreeable posture. F. ' That 's another 
quarter-dollar.' Mr. Ricketts mounts and dismounts a horse in a great variety of modes, leaps 
over the horse in every direction, in an astonishing manner. F. 'Four quarter-dollars is my 
count.' Jlr. Ricketts rides with his head on the saddle, and feet in the air, moving them to the 
music, whilst the horse is at his speed. T. ' I must confess that is well worth a quarter-dollar.' 
Mr. Ricketts gaUops a horse, standing on the saddle, under a riband stretched from the music-box 
to a pole erected in the centre of the circus, twelve feet high, that is, nearly eight feet higher than 
the saddle ; he then leaps over the riband, and on the saddle, the horse in rapid motion. 71 ' Oh 1 
I would have given a half-doUar to see that. Another dollar is up of our count.' In short, Mr. 
T. and Mr. F. at last lost their reckoning, and came away extremely well contented: 'For,' said 
Mr. T., ' upon a fair statement of accounts with Mr. Ricketts, agreeably to my own valuation, I 
have come off with three dollars clear profit, exclusive of all the feats I have seen performed of 
which I did not make any cash estimate.' " 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 377 

On tte mntb. of January, 1793, a Mr. Blanchard made tlie first 
balloon ascension from tlie United States, and the President, witli tlie 
members of the cabinet, and an immense company of men and 
women of all ages, assembled to witness the departure of the aero- 
naut. It was in the midst of the French excitement, and a bard 
of the Genet party addressed him in characteristic verses : 

" Grand Blanchard lorsque tu voleras dans les airs, 
Va annoncer aux pianettes de I'universe ; 
Que les Franrois ont vaincu leurs ennemis interieurs, 
Leur intrepidite a expulce les exterieurs : 
Penetre dans I'Olimpe, et dis a tons les dieux, 
Que les Francois ont ete les victorieux ! 
Prie Mars que les armes de la France, 
Ne laisse aux tirans aucune esperance." * 

Wansey says that at this period " Horrowgate Gardens, two 
miles distant, on the New York road, and Gray's Gardens, on the 
Schuylkill, were the two tea-drinking places for the city, like Bag- 
nigge Wells, and the Ishngton Spa, near London." 

IIL • 

The United States were visited during the eight years of Wash- u^ 
ington's administration by many eminent foreigners, some in official 
capacities, some to observe the working of our new institutions, 
others in search of the picturesque, and a few perhaps who were 
of the class whom Sterne describes as " simple travellers ; " but a 
great majority of the most distinguished were driven to this coun- 
try by the French revolution. The presence of these strangers 
was advantageous in many respects ; among them were a consider- 

* " Great Blanchard I as you wing your way toward the heavens, announce to all the planets 
of the universe, that Frenchmen have conquered their interior enemies, and that those without 
have been repulsed by their intrepidity. Dart through Olympus, and tell the gods, that French- 
men have been victorious. Implore the aid of Mars, that the arms of France may crush the 
ambitious designs of tyrants for ever." 

48 



378 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

able number familiar with tlie practical details of various govern 
ments, and more were liigb-bred gentlemen ; they brought to ua 
the ideas and manners of a splendid tbougli wrecked civilization, 
and strange experiences, fruitful of wise suggestion ; to our forming 
society they offered examples of courtly usages, and to the childi^en 
of our wealthier families, in several instances, princes and nobles for 
teachers and associates. Upon our condition they embroidered much 
of what was most deserving our acceptance in the higher and bet- 
ter life of the older nations. 

The earliest of the illustrious exiles from France who landed 
upon our shores was Chateaubriand, a nephew of Malesherbes. He 
arrived in New York in 1*790, and after passing a few weeks here 
and in Philadelphia, ascended the Hudson, and by the great lakes 
pursued his way to the valley of the Mississipj^i, and finally to the 
shores of the Pacific. To his wanderings among the grand and 
gloomy forests of America the world is indebted for the most im- 
pressive and beautiful displays of his intelligence. Here he wrote 
"The Natchez," and conceived "The Genius of Christianity." He 
returned to Em-ope in 1792. 

Count Andriani, of Milan, also visited the United States in 1790. 
He was the bearer of an ode addressed to Washington by Alfieri. 
Andi'iani afterward published an abusive account of American 
pohtics and manners, which the President characterized in a letter 
to Humphreys, as " an insult to the inhabitants of a country where 
he received more attention and ci^dhty than he seems to merit." 

On the sixth of May, 1793, in the ship which brought back to 
his native city the celebrated preacher. Dr. Duche, came the Vis- 
count de Noailles, a brother-in-law of Lafayette, and a brave and 
sagacious soldier in our own revolution. The same evening he at- 
tended Mrs. Washington's drawing-room, and it was stated in some 
of the Jacobin papers that he remained closeted nearly all night 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL 379 

witli tlie President, as ambassador from tlie exiled princes at Co- 
blentz ; but so far was tHs from being true tliat be retired to bis 
lodgings at a very early bour, and never saw bis old commander 
and friend except in pubHc, so careful was tbe Cbief not to furnisb 
any just ground of complaint against bis conduct by tbe Frencb 
faction. AVitb a countryman, M. Talon, tbe viscount bougbt lands 
and projected a settlement, to be an asylum for tbe exiles, on tbe 
Susquebanna ; but failing to receive expected funds from Europe, 
tbe scbeme was abandoned. His means became" very bmited, and 
Mr. Bingbam, witb wbom be bad been intimate in Paris, gave bim 
tbe use of some tbird story rooms in a building wbicb stood at tbe 
west end of bis garden, baving an entrance from Fourtb street. 
Here on one occasion be gave a dinner to several noblemen and 
gentlemen, wbo, wbile tbe table was being laid, were obbged to sit 
in bis sleeping-room, using tbe bed for want of cbaii^s. Tbe viands 
bad been cooked in Mr. Bingbam's kitcben, and tbe table was at- 
tended by bis servants. 

In 1794 tbe tbree most remarkable Englisbmen in America were 
"William Cobbett, Josepb Priestley, and Tbomas Cooper. Pubbc 
opinion is still divided as to tbeir comparative respectability, but 
tbey were all able, ambitious, and persevering. Cobbett began 
bis career in Pbiladelpbia as a writer of political pampblets, under 
tbe name of Peter Porcupine, and soon after became a bookseller, 
at tbe same time publisbing a daily newspaper under tbe title 
of Porcupuie's Gazette. His Engbsb was admirable for pmity and 
strengtb, and was used most successfully in invective, of wbicb be 
was a consummate master. He opposed tbe Frencb interest, wbicb 
Priestley and Cooper supported. Dr. Priestley was disappointed at 
bis reception in tbis country. His fame as a pbilosopber, a fine 
writer, and a political martyr, procm-ed bim only a few dinners, in 
New York, wbere be landed, and in Pbiladelpbia, to wbicb city be 



380 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

soon after proceeded. His son, wlio arrived in America some time 
before him, had bought lands in Northumberland, on the Susque- 
hanna, and as " it became necessary, even for the preservation of 
his celebrity in Em-ope," says the Duke de Liancourt, " to withdraw 
from a scene where his attempt to attract universal attention had 
completely failed," he retired to that place, where he occupied him- 
self with writing for the j)ress, and an extensive correspondence, 
now and then coming down to Philadelphia for a week's enjoyment 
of society. Dr. Cooper, who had been one of Priestley's intimate 
friends in England, and in France had been a partisan of Brissot, 
also settled in Northumberland. Alexander Barinof, afterward 
Lord Ashburton, was in Philadelphia about the same time. He 
married the eldest daughter of Mr. Bingham. The British minis- 
ter at this period was Mr. George Hammond, who is described as 
" a fine looking man, stout and rosy faced, wearing a full powdered 
wig." Oliver Wolcott says he was " a weak, vain, and imj^rudent 
character, very much in the company and under the influence of 
sour and prejudiced tories, who wished to see the country dis- 
graced." He married one of the Misses Allen, a gii-l of remark- 
able beauty. 

It was in the spring of 1794 that the exiled Bishop of Autun, 
M. de Talleyrand, no longer safe in England, sought a refuge in the 
United States. He brought a letter to Washington from the Mar- 
quis of Lansdowne, who commended him for the manner in which he 
had conducted himself during his three years' residence in London. 
Mrs. Church, a daughter of General Schuyler, and sister of Mrs. 
Hamilton, gave him a letter to ]\Ir. and Mrs. Breck, of Philadel- 
phia. " I request," she writes, " that MM. de Talleyrand and de 
Beaumet may be of the number of those admitted to the pleasure 
of your acquaintance. Europe has seldom parted with persons of 
more information, or more inclined to appreciate the meiits and 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL, 381 

manners of our countrymen." Washington wrote to Lord Lans- 
downe at tlie end of August, " It is a matter of no small regret to 
me tliat considerations of a public nature, wliicli you will easily 
conjectm^e, have not hitherto permitted me to manifest towards 
that gentleman the sense I entertain of his personal character, and 
of your lordship's recommendation ; but I am informed that the 
reception he has met with, in general, has been such as to console 
him, as far as the state of society here will admit of it, for what he 
has relinquished in leaving Em'ope. Time must natm^ally be favor- 
able to him every where, and may be expected to raise a man of 
his merit above the temporary disadvantages which in revolutions 
result from differences of political opinion." It has been suggested 
that this extraordinary character was a native of Mount Desert, in 
Maine, and some curious facts have been adduced in support of 
such an opinion. It appears that he had not been long in the coun- 
try before Mr. Edward Bobbins, afterward Lieutenant Governor 
of Massachusetts, discovered him incog, at Mount Desert, wander- 
ing about without any apparent motive. The older inhabitants 
of that secluded place thought they recognized in him an illegiti- 
mate son of the pretty daughter of a fisherman and the captain of 
a French national ship which had been there about the year 1753. 
The boy, they said, when twelve or thirteen years of age, his mother 
being dead, had been taken away by a French gentleman, who 
declared that he was descended from a noble family in France 
We may know about this in 1868, when the autobiography of the 
prince, according to his last injunctions, will be published. He Ije- 
came a citizen of the United States, and his certificate of naturali- 
zation was for a long time in Peale's Museum. In Philadelphia he 
lived at Oeller's hotel, and in New York at the house which had 
been occupied by the President, at the foot of Broadway — in 1794 
a fashionable boarding-house. Though admired for his abilities he 



382 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

was hated for the heartlessness which he displayed in regard to the 
sufferings of his countrymen. One cold day he entered the draw- 
ing-room, wearing, as was not unusual at that period, buckskin pan- 
taloons, and took a position on the hearth, close to the fire. The heat 
Boon caused the leather to scorch and smoke, and the faces of the 
company evinced the restraint of good breeding struggling against 
a provocation of laughter. Talleyi'and's quick eye penetrated the 
mask without discovering its cause, until he seated himself, when 
his sudden cry of pain compelled the women to flee to other rooms 
where they might give vent to their merriment. His personal ap- 
pearance was as remarkable as his character. He was very tall, 
and had light hair, which he wore long and parted in front ; he had 
expressive blue eyes, and a sallow complexion ; his mouth was wide 
and coarse ; his body large and " protuberant in front ; " his legs were 
singularly small, and his feet deformed. His manner was tranquil 
and watchful, and in some respects extremely vulgar and repulsive. 
A woman at whose house, in New York, he frequently dined, said 
• he would sometimes rest his elbows on the table, supporting his 
face between his hands, and carry on a conversation with his mouth 
so full that he could hardly speak ; and he would cut all the meat 
on his plate into small pieces, pierce them with his fork, until its 
prongs were full, then thrust them into his mouth, and, closing his 
teeth, pull out the fork, leaving all its freight in his capacious jaws. 
It is related by M. Brierre de Boismont that he came near losing 
his life in this city by the hands of his friend Beaumet. In his 
old age the conversation in his presence was one day turned to 
those instantaneous warnings which some regard as communications 
from the invisible world. "I can never forget," remarked the 
prince, " that I was once gifted, for a moment, with an extraordi- 
nary and inexplicable prescience, which was the means of sa^nug 
my life, "Without that sudden and mysterious inspu'ation, I should 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 383 

not he here to recount tliese curious details. I was intimately con- 
nected with one of my countrymen, M. Beaumet. We liad always 
lived on tlie best terms, and in those stormy times, when the expres- 
sion of friendship required almost a divine courage, something more 
than friendship was needed to unite persons. I had no cause to 
doubt his affection ; on the contrary, he had on several occasions 
given the most devoted proofs of his attachment to my person and 
interests. We had together quitted England to take refuge in 
New York, and had hitherto lived in perfect harmony. Wishing 
to increase our little capital, I had freighted a ship, half shares 
with him, to try our fortune in the Indies. We were ready for oui* 
departure, but waited for a favorable wind with the greatest impa- 
tience. This state of uncertainty appeared to sour poor Beaumet 
to a most extraordinary degree. Incapable of remaining quiet, he 
roamed the city with a feverish activity, which, for the moment, 
excited my surprise, for he was always remarkable for his calmness 
and placidity. One day he entered the room, evidently under in- 
tense excitement, although he used great efforts to restrain himself. 
I was writing letters to Europe. Leaning over my shoulder, he sai(^, 
with a forced gayety, ' Why do you lose time in writing these let- 
ters ? they will never reach their destination ; come with me, and 
let us make the round of the Battery ; the wind may become favor- 
able; perhaps we are nearer to our departure than we think!' 
The day was magnificent, although the wind was high ; I allowed 
myself to be persuaded. Beaumet, as I afterwards recollected, 
showed extraordinary alacrity in closing my desk, arranging my 
papers, and offering my hat and cane, which I attributed to the 
need of incessant activity with which he had appeared overwhelmed 
ever since our forced departure. We threaded the well-peoj)led 
•streets, and reached the Battery. He had offered me his arm, and 
hurried on as if he were in haste to reach it. When we were on 



^ 



384 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

the grand esjDlanade, lie hastened still more, until we reached the 
edge. He spoke loudly and rapidly, and admired, in energetic 
terms, the beauties of the scene. Suddenly he stopped, in the 
midst of his disordered conversation. I had disengaged my arm 
from his, and stood firmly before him. I fixed my eye upon him, 
and he moved aside, as if intimidated and ashamed. ' Beaumet ! ' 
cried I, ' your intention is to kill me ; you mean to throw me from 
this height into the sea ! Deny it, monster, if you dare ! ' The 
insane man looked at me intently with his haggard eyes for a mo- 
ment ; but I was careful not to remove my gaze from him, and they 
fell. He muttered some incoherent words, and endeavored to pass 
me, but I spread my arms and prevented him. Casting a wild look 
around, he threw himself on my neck, and burst into tears. ' It is 
true, it is true, my friend ! the thought has haunted me day and 
night like an infernal flame. It was for that I brought you here ; 
see, you are not a foot from the precipice ! another instant, the deed 
would have been done ! ' The demon had abandoned him ; his eye3 
were void of expression ; a white foam covered his parched lips ; 
the crisis had passed. I conducted him home. Some days of rest, 
bleeding, and dieting, entirely cured him, and, what is the most 
sino-ular circumstance of all, we never referred to the occurrence." 
The old minister was persuaded that, on that day, his destiny would 
have been decided, but for his sudden suspicion of Beaumet, and he 
never spoke on the subject without the greatest emotion. 

M. Jean Antoine Joseph Fauchet, afterward Baron Fauchet, 
who succeeded M. Genet as minister from France, was thu'ty years 
of age, and had won some applause in Paris as a political wiiter, 
but was without any very marked social characteristics. John 
Adams writes, in March, 1Y94: "He is not quite so unreserved as 
his predecessor ; he seems to me to be in great distress ; he was re- 
ceived by the galleries in the theatre with three cheers, but the 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 385 

people have not addressed Mm or made mucli noise about him. At 
the bii'th-night ball he was placed by the managers on the right 
hand of the President, which gave great offence to the Spanish 
commissioners ; and it is said Mr. Hammond has left the theatre, 
offended and disgusted at some popular distinctions there." He is 
remembered in this country chiefly in connection with his celebrated 
despatches respecting Secretary Kandolph. He was superseded by 
the appointment of M. Pierre Auguste Adet, who arrived in Phila- 
delphia in the summer of 1795. M. Adet was of about the same 
age, and besides his successes in politics had won consideration as 
a chemist. Wolcott wrote of him to his wife, " He appears to be 
a mild-tempered and well-educated man, and no Jacobin. Dupont, ^ 
who, you know, was here two years ago, is secretary to the legation. 
Both he and the minister have handsome wives, and this is a good 
sign." Wolcott thought he would not be violent or troublesome in 
his relations with the government, but he as well as others were in 
this respect mistaken. 

About the end of the year 1194: the Due de la Kochefoucauld 
Liancourt, after a residence of some fifteen months in England, ar- 
rived in Philadelphia, with many letters of introduction, and pre- 
ceded by an honorable and distinguished reputation. He was 
about forty-five years of age, and Thiers describes him as having 
been in the earher days of the French revolution, when he was 
President of the National Assembly, alike eminent for his virtues, 
great talents, and liberal feelings. His immense estates had been 
confiscated, but he possessed while in this country an income suffi- 
cient for the satisfaction of his moderate desires. After remaining 
in Philadelphia five months he set out on his travels, and in the 
course of the next three years visited nearly every state in the 
Union. The families with which he was most intimate in Phila-^ 
delphia were those of General Knox and Judge Chew. After his 
49 



386 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

return to France lie published a work on the Prisons of Philadel 
phia, and an account of Ms residence in tli^ United States, in eight 
volumes. 

Louis Philippe d'Orleans, under an assumed name, had taught 
geometry among the mountains of Switzerland, and, melancholy, 
gentle, unassuming, and laborious, had been an object of affection- 
ate interest to all his associates and pupils, none of whom knew his 
rank or even his country. In 1796 Mr. Gouverneur Morris enabled 
him to come to the United States, and wrote to his correspondents 
in New York giving the young prince an unlimited credit while he 
should reside or travel here. Louis Philij)pe however was too just 
to avail himself in~ any unnecessary degree of Mr. Morris's gener 
osity, and had been so familiar with misfortune as to experience 
little difficulty in accommodating himself to an extremely modest 
style of living. In Philadelphia he had a single room, over a bar- 
ber's shop, where he lodged, and on one occasion gave a dinner, at 
which were present, besides two or three exiles, Mr. Copley, after- 
ward Lord Lyndhurst, and several Americans. He apologized for 
seating one half his guests on the side of a bed : he " had himself 
occupied less comfortable places, without the consolation of an 
agreeable company." He v/as now about twenty-three years of 
age, above the middle stature, and had a dark complexion, sunken 
eyes, and a very dignified deportment. He was intimate with Mr. 
Bingham's family, and offered himself to one of his daughters. The 
senator declined the royal alliance : " Should you ever be restored 
to yom' hereditary position," he said to the duke, " you will be 
too great a match for her ; if not, she is too great a match for 
you." In February, 1*797, he was joined by his two brothers, the 
Duke de Montpensier and the Count de Beaujolais, and the three 
princes, with a single servant, who had accompanied the Duke of 
Orleans ever since he left Paris, set out on horseback to see the 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 387 

interior of the United States. Tliey visited Washington at Mount 
Vernon, and after a tour tlirougli tlie soutli returned by way of 
Niagara Falls to Philadelpliia, where they were under a necessity 
of remaining during the prevalence of the yellow fever in the sum- 
mer of that year. 

John Singleton Copley, son of John Singleton Copley the paint- 
er, was Lorn in Boston, and was carried to England when about 
two years of age, before the revolution. He was now about twenty- 
four, and was a tranquil and quiet gentleman, rather tall and thin, 
with light complexion, blue eyes, and courteous manners. He was 
reputed to be a good scholar, but evinced no such distinguished 
abilities as would have justified a prophecy that he was to become 
Lord Chancellor of England. The Duke of Kent, son of George 
the Third, and father of Victoria, was here at the same time. The 
British minister who succeeded Mr, Hammond was Mr. Liston. 
He arrived in Philadelphia on the twelfth of May, 1796. His 
last diplomatic service had been at Constantinople. Wolcott de- 
scribes him as an " amiable, worthy man." He was a Scotchman, 
of middling size, and wore a wig with side curls. 

On the second of April, 1T95, Mrs. Cushing,* wife of Judge 
Cushing of the Supreme Court, writes from Philadelphia : " We 
dined to-day with the President and Mrs. Washington, in company 
with Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, the Chevalier and Madame Frere (who 
is truly an elegant woman), Don Philip Jaudennes and his lady, 

* I am indebted to the venerable and excellent Madame Hammatt, of Bangor, in Maine — a 
niece of Mrs. Gushing — for the interesting MS. diary of that distinguished lady, and her corres- 
pondence with many of her dignified contemporaries. Mrs. Cushing always travelled with her 
husband, on his official circuits, to take care of him. Mi-s. Pinckney writes to her from Charles- 
ton, under date of July 5, I'ZOS: "Mr. Izard contrived to overset his chair and himself, on his 
journey home, and dislocated his ai'm. lie says the accident would not have hapj^eued if he haa 
had Mrs. Izard with him, and that it was in consequence of his thinking of politics instead of 
the road. So you see, my dear madam, in what a variety of ways your travelling with ilr. Cushing 
is beneficial to him," 



388 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Mr. and Mrs. Van Berckel, Mr. and Mrs. Eandolph, Mr. and Mrs 
Wolcott, Mr. and Mrs. Pinckney, and Mr. and Mrs. Coxe. Madame 
Fi'ere and IMadame Jaudennes were brilliant witli diamonds." The 
CLevalier Frere was the Portuguese minister, and his wife became 
very intimate with Mrs. Washington and Miss Custis. Jaudennes 
was minister from Spain. 

\ In June, 1T96, Don Carlos Martinez, Marquis d'Yrujo, succeeded 
Jaudennes as Spanish minister. On his arrival in this country the 
President was at Mount Vernon, and there the IMarquis paid him a 
visit. On the fourth of July Washington writes to Pickering, 
"M. d'Yrujo spent two days with me, and is just gone. I caused 
it to be intimated to him that, as I should be absent from the seat 
of government until the middle or latter end of August, I was ready 
to receive his letter of credentials at this place. He answered, as 
I understood it, that his credentials were with his baggage on its 
passage to Philadelphia, and that his. reception at that place, at the 
time mentioned, would be perfectly agreeable to himself. He is a 
young man, very free and easy in his manners, professes to be weU 
disposed towards the United States, and as far as a judgment can 
be formed on so slight an acquaintance, appears to be well in- 
formed." He married Sally McKean, a daughter of the Chief Jus- 
tice of Pennsylvania. She was considered a great beauty. D'Yrujo 
was afterward conspicuous in Spanish affairs, and his son, the Duke 
of Sotomayer, born in Philadelphia, became Prime Minister. Phil- 
adelphia furnished wives for the envoys of France, England and 
Spain, during Washington's administration, and a large number of 
foreign ministers have since been married to American women. 

Volney, the infidel traveller and essayist, with the littleness, 
malice, and insolence which have almost invariably marked the 
class of thinkers to which he belonged, inflated by what he calls 
the " splendid success " of his book on the East, and continually 



LIFEINTHECAPITAL. 389 

piqued at tlie flattering accounts of the rising glory of America 1by 
otlier wiiters, determined to apply Ids sagacity to tlieir delusions, 
and "reduce tlieir exaggerated and glowing descriptions to tlie 
standard of common sense." "WTiile lie was in Philadelpliia Stuart 
painted his portrait. He liad a peculiarly FrencL. physiognomy, 
with high forehead, blue eyes, small mouth, invariably a querulous 
and sneering expression, and was tall, straight, and well formed. 
He asked Washington (of whose abilities he says, " they would not 
have raised him above the rank of colonel in the French service,") 
to give him letters of introduction, to be used on his excursions 
through the states, and the Chief wrote, " C. Yolney needs no recom- 
mendation from George Washington." 

Of Erick Bollmann John Adams wrote to his daughter, in IT 96, 
" Dr. Bollmann has called on me, and, with an extravagant character 
for knowledge and capacity, he appears to be an adventurer, with 
little judgment or solidity." Hamilton says of him in a letter to 
Washington, after alluding to his attempt to liberate Lafayette, 
" He appears to have been induced to think that he attempted a 
service which would strongly recommend him to the favor of thfe 
country, and as a consequence of it he hopes for some civil employ- 
ment under our government. He seems to be a man of education, 
speaks several languages, converses sensibly, is of polite manners.^ 
and I dare say has the materials of future advancement." 

Kosciusko, and his young friend and countryman the poet Mem- 
cewicz, came to this country about the period of the end of Wash- 
ington's administration. The Duke de Liancourt saw them at the 
house of General Gates. "Simple and modest," says the duke, 
" Kosciusko even shed tears of gratitude, and seems astonished at 
the homage he receives. He sees a brother in every man who is 
the friend of liberty. Elevation of sentiment, grandeur, sweetness, 
force goodness, all that commands respect and honor, appear to me 



390 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

to be concentrated in tliis celebrated and interesting victim of mis- 
fortune and despotism. And Memcewicz is, from his noble senti- 
ments, tlie agreeableness of his manners, and the extent of his 
knowledge, a person peculiarly interesting." 

IV. 

No circumstances during his entire administration caused Wash- 
ington more painful anxiety than the imprisonment of Lafayette, 
for whom he felt a most fraternal affection and the sincerest respect. 
With Prussia and Austria, in which countries his friend was succes- 
sively a prisoner, the United States had then no dij)lomatic inter- 
course, and it was not possible therefore for the President to exer- 
cise in his behalf any more than a personal influence, and this was 
found altogether unavaiHng. When, in 1795, the wife and daugh- 
ters of Lafayette left France to join him at Olmutz, his son, George 
Washington Lafayette, came to America, where he remained nearly 
two years. With his tutor,- M. Frestel, he arrived in Philadelphia 
in April, 1796, and the President immediately afterward invited a 
few friends to meet them at dinner. One of these, Mr. Adams, 
availed himself of the opportunity to request them to come with 
Mr. Lear the next morning and breakfast with him. Washington 
heard of the invitation, in the evening, and sent Mr. Lear to advise 
with the Vice President whether it would be proper for the youth, 
in the existing circumstances of his father, mother, and whole fam- 
ily, to mingle in society ; and he was excused. It was, perhaps, 
because a dehcate sense of propriety induced him to withdi-aw his 
ward as much as possible from an unbecoming publicity, that the 
democratic journals assailed him with the calumny of inhospitahty 
toward the son of one to whom the nation was so greatly indebted. 

Mr. Eichard Eush relates a very interesting incident illustrative 
of th(^. feelings of Washins^ton in res^ard to the misfortunes of his 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 391 

old companion in arms. Mr. Bradford lived on tlie opposite side 
of the street, next to Dr. Binney's, and the two families were united 
by an affectionate intimacy. One evening when he happened to 
be at the President's, and no one else w^as there except the family 
circle, consisting of the General and Mrs. Washington, one of the 
private secretaries, and young Custis and his sisters, the conver- 
sation reverted to the prisoner at Olmutz, and the Chief con- 
trasted his present unhappy cuxumstances with his former splendid 
career, dwelling upon his sufferings until the warmth of their an- 
cient friendship was reawakened, and he became deeply affected, his 
eyes suffused, his noble features discomposed, and his whole nature 
shaken. Mr. Bradford saw it ; " and what a spectacle," says IMr. 
Rush, " to be witnessed by a man whose own bosom was open to 
the heavings of patriotism and every other generous impulse ! If 
the great Conde, at the representation of one of Corneille's trage- 
dies, shed tears at the part where Caesar is made to utter a fine sen- 
timent, what was that, in its power to stir the soul, though Voltaire 
has so emblazoned it, to tears shed by Washington over the real 
woes of Lafayette ! Washington, a nation's founder, and Lafay- 
ette, his heroic Mend, who had crossed an ocean to fight the bat- 
tles of liberty by his side ! Magnanimous tears they were, fit for 
the first of heroes to have shed ! virtuous, honorable, sanctified ! " 
Returning to his own house, profoundly moved by the scene he had 
just witnessed, Mr. Bradford sat down and wrote the following 
simple but touching verses, an impromptu effusion from the heart 
of a man of sensibility and genius : 

THE LAjVIENT of WASHINGTOK 
As beside his cheerful fire, 
'Midst his happy family, 
Sat a venerable sire, 
Tears were starting in his eye , 
Selfish blessings were forgot, 
Whilst he thought on Fayette's lot. 



392 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

Once so happy on our plains — 
Now in poverty and chains. 

" Fayette," cried he — " honored name I 
Dear to these far distant shores — 
Fayette, fired by freedom's flame. 
Bled to make that freedom ours. 
What, alas ! for this remains — 
What, but poverty and chains ! 

" Soldiers, in our fields of death — 
Was not Fayette foremost there ? 
Cold and shivering on the heath. 
Did you not his bounty share ? 
What reward for this remains, 
What, but poverty and chains ! 

" Hapless Fayette ! 'midst thine error. 
How my soul thy worth reveres ! 
Son of freedom, tyrant's terror. 
Hero of both hemispheres ! 
What reward for all remains. 
What, but poverty and chains ! 

" Born to honors, ease, and wealth, 
See him sacrifice them all ; 
Sdcrificing also health. 
At his country's glorious call. 
What for thee, my friend, remains. 
What, but poverty and chains ! 

Thus, with laurels on his brow, 
Belisarius begged for bread ; 
Thus, from Carthage forced to go, 
Hannibal an exile fled. 
Alas ! Fayette at once sustains, 
Exile, Poverty, and Chains ! " 

Courage, child of Washington ! 
Though thy fate disastrous seems. 
We have seen the setting sun 
Rise and burn with brighter beams. 
Thy country soon shall break thy chain, 
And take thee to her arms again. 

Thy country soon shall break thy chain, 
And take thee to her arms again ! 



LIFEINTHECAPITAL. 393 

These verses were not written for publication or criticism, and 
are not to be received as an example of ]Mi\ Bradford's poetical 
abilities, but private copies of them were circulated, and they were 
sometimes sung to a plaintive air composed on the execution of 
Marie Antoinette, which was current in Philadelphia after that 
melancholy tragedy. 



Among the women most intimate with Mi^s. "Washington, Mr. 
Custis mentions in a recent letter to me, besides Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. 
Knox, Mrs. Stewart, Mrs. Morris, IVIi's. Powell, and others who have 
been frequently referred to in these pages, Mrs. Bradford, Mrs. 
Otis, and Miss Eoss. " Mrs. Knox," says the Duke de la Roche- 
foucauld Liancourt, " is a lady of whom you conceive a still higher 
opinion the longer you are acquainted with her. Seeing her in 
Philadelphia you think of her only as a fortunate player at whist ; 
at her house in the country you discover that she possesses spright- 
liness, knowledge, a good heart, and an excellent understanding." 
Of her daughter he tells us, that at their home in Maine " she lays 
aside her excessive timidity, and you admire alike her beauty, wit, 
and cheerfulness ; " and of the General, " he is one of the worthiest 
men I have ever known — lively, agreeable, valuable equally as 
an excellent friend and as an engaging companion." ^Irs. Otis was 
the wife of the secretary of the senate, and mother of the great ora- 
tor, Harrison Gray Otis, who was married in Beaton on the fifteenth 
of May, 1*790, to Sally Foster, daughter of a merchant of that city, 
at that time a few weeks over twenty years of age. Mr. Otis was 
not elected to Congress until the retirement of Fisher Ames, in 
1797 ; but, with his youthful wife, remarkable for beauty and wit, 
as well as for an intellectual vivacity, tempered always by an in- 
describable grace, he was much in metropolitan society during the 
50 



394 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

entii-e jDeriod of Washington's administration. Mrs. Stewart was 
tlie wife of General Walter Stewart, who lived in the house next to 
the President's, toward Fifth street. Miss Ross was the beautiful 
daughter of Mr. James Ross of Pittsburg, one of the senators rep- 
resenting the State of Pennsylvania Mrs. Bradford'^ was the only 

* "The wido-w of Mr. Bradford," writes Mr. Richard Rush, "still lives in an ancient- town on 
the banks of the Delaware, a beautiful relict of the days here recalled ; her house the abode of 
hospitality as abundant as it is cordial and elegant ; and fourscore years and more not having 
impaired the courtesy, the grace, the habitual suavity and kindness, or even that disciplined 
carriage of the person, all made part of her nature by her early intercourse and the school in 
which she was reared ; for if Portia, speaking of herself as Cato's daughter and wife of Brutus, 
coidd exclaim, 'Think you I am no stronger than my sex, being so fathered and so husbanded!' 
it may be permitted us to say of this venerable relict, once of the Washington circle, and being 
'fathered and husbanded' as we have also seen, she could not be other than she is." The late 
Mrs. Susan Wallace, whose husband, Mr. John Bradford Wallace, was a nephew of Mr. Bradford, 
described her, many years after the events referred to in the text, in the following extract which 
I am permitted to make from her diary : " Mrs. Bradford, one of my guests, is a remarkable 
woman, one of the finest models of mild and courtly dignity this country, or any other indeed, 
can exhibit. Accustomed from childhood to the best society — the only child of most respectable 
parents, of family rank — ofiiees of trust and honor were numerous and common to her intimate 
connexions ; and her happy and much caressed girlhood was passed in an intercourse with per- 
sons long since the boast of the brightest days of American refinement and patriotism. She in- 
termarried with William Bradford, a man whose character combined almost every virtue, talent, 
and accomplishment. With him she commanded a sphere of extensive influence, the just desert 
of their united excellencies, and lived, as I have heard her say, for more than ten years in the 
fuU possession of every earthly enjoyment. Well for them they lived as Christian persons ought 
to live, in constant remembrance of their accountability to God 1 for in the height of eminent 
distinction, of official station, of favor with the first men and women of the country, and in pos- 
session of domestic joy and peace — in the moment when they thought not of interruption or 
disappointment — their well-planned schemes of happiness were laid in the dust. A fever at- 
tacked INJr. Bradford, and a few days terminated his life. Ilis tender and devoted wife was ovei'- 
whelmed Avith the agonies of grief, and her kind parents long essayed in vain to restore her to 
composure and to social intercoursa Time, at last, in connection with religious influences, did 
its work ill lessening the destructive ravages of sorrow, and for many years past Mrs. Bradford 
has maintained a position of useful and elegant hospitality to her numerous relatives, and her 
warm and affectionate friends. She is now in the vale of years, but it is neither rough nor dark. 
Iler beneficence, urbanity, and social sweetness, shed a temperate light over all her paths, and 
are gently smoothing the downward road that is to be closed on life, and opened, I trust, to im- 
mortal peace and joy. No one I believe can anticipate the near approach of death with calm- 
ness but those who envelop themselves with the illusions of sensible imagery, or that small and 
highly-privileged class, who, by repentance and faith, have made themselves acquainted with 
the gracious promises of their blessed Saviour, and rest their anxious, trembling spirits on His 
everlasting arms." 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 395 

cMld of Elias Boudinot, one of tlie most respectable cliaracters of 
tlie revolution, and she and Mrs. Hamilton and Mi's. Charles Carroll, 
tlie yomiger, I believe are the only ladies of. oui' Republican Court 
now living. Mrs. Carroll was one of the daughters of Benjamin 
Chew. She was not married until after Washington's final retire- 
ment to Mount Vernon, but she and her sister, Mrs. Henry Philips, 
were great favorites with the Chief, and were much in his society 
as gu-ls. The marriage of an elder sister, to Colonel John Eager 
Howard, of Baltimore, was attended by him at Chew's baronial 
house in Germantown during the sittings of the Federal Conven- 
tion in 1787. Mrs. Howard came back to reside in Philadelphia 
in 1790, when her husband entered Congress as a senator from 
Maryland. 

Dolly Payne, born in North Carolina, had been educated ac- 
cording to the strictest rules of the Quakers, in Philadelphia, where 
at an early age she married a young lawyer of this sect, named 
Todd ; but becoming a widow she threw off drab silks and plain 
laces, and was for several years one of the gayest and most fasci- 
nating women of the city. She had many lovers, but she gave the 
preference to Mr. Madison, and became his wife in 1794. 

Among the accomplished and fashionable men who were at this 
period in public life were Robert Goodloe Harper, a son-in-law of 
Charles Carroll the elder, and "VYiUiam Smith, of Charleston, who 
married a sister of John Butledge. They were conspicuous mem- 
bers of the Federal party, and had great influence in Congress. 
Aaron Burr, who was now a senator, lived in style, and gave ele- 
gant entertainments, but his associates were chiefly politicians. 
Adams mentions dining with him, and in another letter, written 
about the same time, says : " Yesterday I dined at Mr. Morris's, 
where hospitality is always precious. A comj)any of venerable old 
rakes, threescore years of age, or a httle over or a httle under, sat 



396 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

smoking cigars, drinking Burgundy and Madeira, and talking poli- 
tics, till almost eleven o'clock. This will do once in a great wkile ; 
not often, for me." 

Mr. Jefferson also kept a liberal table for his friends, and we 
have an account of one of his dinners, from the pen of Colonel 
Trumbull. The artist had been on terms of confidence with Mr. Jef- 
ferson, in Europe, and continued to be so for some time after his 
return to America, so that, he says, " when the fii'st mission to the 
states of Barbary was determined on, it was through him offered to 
me, and dechned ; but as the French revolution advanced, my whole 
soul revolted from its atrocities, while he approved of all, or apol- 
ogized for all ; he opposed Washington ; I revered him ; and a 
coldness gradually succeeded until, in 1793, he invited me to dine. 
A few days before, I had offended his friend, Mr. Giles, a senator 
from Virginia, by rendering him ridiculous in the eyes of a lady * 
to whose favorable opinion he aspired. On entering the drawing- 
room at Mr. Jefferson's, on the day of the dinner, I found a part 
of the company ah'eady assembled, among them Mr. Giles ; and J 
was scarcely seated, when he began to rally me on the puritanical 

* " Among many elegant families which at that time graced the society of Philadelphia, wab 
one particularly distinguished by the intellectual eminence and personal charms of several lovely 
daughters ; to one of these Mr. Gileg vras disposed to recommend himself. At the same time I 
was free of the tea-table, and calling one afternoon to beg a cup of tea, I found Mr. Giles in 
earnest conversation with his favorite, and ridiculing the elder Mr. Adams, and his work, called 
the Defence of the American Constitutions. A moment's attention convinced me that he was 
talking at random, of a subject which he did not understand. I therefore watched an opportu- 
nity to interrupt the conversation, by asking, ' Mr. Giles, is it possible that you can have taken 
the trouble to read the long work of which you are speaking ? ' ' Certainly.' ' The hrst volume 
perhaps?' 'To be sure.' 'And the second?' 'Yes.' 'You must have observed, then, that 
these two volumes are little else than a concise epitome of the constitutions of preceding repub- 
lics. Ue reserves his own opinions in a great measure for the third volume ; I presume you have 
read that also? ' Here Mr. Giles lost his patience, and exclaimed, ' Who could wade through such 
a mass of stuff ? ' I said no more ; but the lady, with one of her sweetest smiles, said, ' I have 
observed, Mr. Giles, that you have a habit of giving your opinions of men and things in pretty 
Btrong terms; I hope you are careful always to be as accurately informed upon other subjects as 
you appear to be upon this of Mr. Adams's book.' " — Trumbull's Memoirs 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 397 

ancestry and character of ISTew England. I saw there was no other 
person from New England present, and therefore, although con- 
scious that I was in no degree qualified to manage a religious dis- 
cussion, I felt myself hound to defend my country on this delicate 
point as well as I could. Whether it had been pre-arranged that 
a debate on the Christian rehgion, in which it should be power- 
fully ridiculed on the one side, and weakly defended on the other, 
was to be brought forward, as promising amusement to a rather free- 
thinking dinner party, I will not presume to say ; but it had that ap- 
pearance, and Mr. Giles pushed his raillery, to my no small annoy- 
ance, if not to my discomfiture, until dinner was announced. That, 
I hoped, would relieve me, by giving a new turn to the conversa- 
tion ; but the company was hardly seated at table, when he renewed 
his assault with increased asperity, and proceeded so far, at last, as 
to ridicule the character, conduct and doctrines of the divine Founder 
of our religion — Mr. Jefferson, in the mean time, smihng and nod- 
ding approbation on Mr. Giles, while the rest of the company si- 
lently left me and my defence to our fate, until, at length, my friend 
David Franks took up the argument on my side. Thinking this a 
fair opportunity for evading further conversation on the subject, I 
turned to Mr. Jefferson and said, ' Sir, this is a strange situation in 
which I find myself; in a country professing Christianity, and at a 
table with Christians, as I supposed, I find my religion and myself 
attacked with severe and almost irresistible wit and raillery, and 
ot a person to aid in my defence, but my friend Mr. Franks, who 
IS himself a Jew.' For a moment this attempt to parry the discus- 
sion appeared to have some effect ; but Giles soon returned to the 
attack with renewed virulence, and burst out with, ' It is all misera- 
ble delusion and priestcraft ; I do not believe one word of all they 
say about a future state of existence, and retribution for actions 
done here ; I do not believe one word of a Supreme Being who 



398 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

takes cognizance of tlie paltry affaii-s of tlik world, and to whom 
we are responsible for what we do.' I had never before heard, or 
seen in writing, such a broad and unqualified avowal of atheism. 
I was at first shocked, and remained a moment silent ; but soon 
rallied and replied, ' Mr. Giles, I admire your frankness, and it is 
but just that I should be equally frank in avowing my sentiments. 
Sir, in my opinion, the man who can with sincerity make the de- 
claration which you have just made, is perfectly prepared for the 
commission of any atrocious action by which he can promise him- 
self the advancement of his own interest, or the gratification of 
his impure passions, provided he can commit it secretly and with 
a reasonable probability of escaping detection by his fellow men. 
Sir, I would not trust such a man with the honor of a wife, a sis- 
ter, or a daughter, with my own pm'se or reputation, or with any 
thing which I thought valuable. Our acquaintance, sir, is at an 
end.' I rose and left the company, and never after spoke to Mr. 
Giles. I have thought it proper to relate this conversation, as help- 
ing to elucidate the character of Mr. Jefferson, on the disputed point 
of want of credulity, as he would call it. In nodding and smiling 
assent to all thfe vii'ulence of his friend, Mr. Giles, he apjDeared to 
me to avow most distinctly his entii'e approbation. From this time 
my acquaintance with Mr. Jefferson became cold and distant," 

VI. 

At the houses of the principal federalists connected with the 
government there was a very different style of conversation ; re- 
ligion was treated with reverence ; the instructions of the past were 
received with humility, and \dsions of the future were seen through 
the softening light of experience. The New Englanders clustered 
about the home of Wolcott. The late Judge Hopkinson, as well 
known for his " Hail Columbia ! " as the elder Judge Hopkinson, his 



LIFE INTHECAPITAL. 399 

father, for tlie " Battle of tlie Kegs," was tlieii a young man, and 
in one of his later letters he recalls the cuxle of Wolcott's associ- 
ates. " During his residence in Philadelphia," he says, " the division 
of political parties in their social intercourse was more decided than 
it has ever been since ; his associations therefore were almost exclu- 
sively with the federal members of the administration and of Con- 
gress, together with families residing in the city, of the same poli- 
tics, which then certainly constituted the best society. In his parlor 
of an evening you would meet more or less company of that de- 
scription. Leading members of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives, especially from New England, were habitually there, and 
sometimes at my house. When I mention such names as Ellsworth, 
Ames, Griswold, Goodrich, and Tracy, you may imagine what a rich 
intellectual society it was. I will not say that we have no such 
men now, but I do not know where they are." Of the Secretary 
of the Treasury himself, HopMnson says, " He was a man of cheer- 
ful and even of a playful disposition. His conversation was inter- 
esting and earnest, but gay, unless the occasion was unfit for gayety. 
He enjoyed a good joke, and his laugh was hearty and frequent. 
He delighted in the discussion of literary subjects and the works 
of distinguished authors, and was particularly fond of poetry. In- 
deed in his younger days I have understood that he was a poet. 
He had a good taste in literature with one exception, about which 
we often disputed, and in which his New England attachments or 
prejudices controlled his judgment ; he had an excessive admiration 
of D wight's ' Conquest of Canaan.' His domestic life was most ex- 
emplary ; his greatest happiness was in his family, with the friends 
who congregated at his residence. His devotion to the business 
and duties of his office was severe and unremitting. He possessed 
in a high degree a very rare qualification — the capacity for con- 
tinued hard work — and was in every thing systematic and orderly 



400 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

His attaclinients to liis friends were strong and lasting, never taxing 
them witli uni'easonable exactions or subjecting tliem to unpleasant 
caprices. He was open and direct in all Ms dealings, witliout du- 
plicity or intrigue in any tMng ; his sincerity was sui-e, he deceived 
nobody." "VVolcott's youngest sister I have already had occasion to 
mention as one of the most distinguished beauties of her time. She 
was afterward married to Chauncey Goodrich, a man of eminent 
abilities and the highest character. His wife had less beauty, but 
a countenance of much loveliness, and very graceful manners ; and 
there were few women who could be compared with her for refined 
cultivation and intelligence. An anecdote referring to h.er is re- 
corded as an illustration of the wit of Mr. Tracy, one of the Con- 
necticut senators. As she was moving with her accustomed ease and 
dignity through a dance, her figure arrested the attention of Mi\ 
Liston, the British minister, who exclaimed, turning to Tracy, 
" Your countrywoman, Mrs. Wolcott, would be admii'ed even at 
St. James's." " Sir," replied the senator, " she is admired even on 
Litchfield HiU!" 

On one occasion Dr. Dwight visited Philadelphia, and was for 
several days a guest of the Wolcotts. In a letter to the secretary 
he says, " I thank you, with much affection, for the uniform sincer- 
ity and hospitality which I found at your house; assure Mrs. Wol- 
cott of the grateful sense I shall ever entertain of the very polite 
and friendly manner in which she rendered my residence there pe- 
cuharly agreeable." 

Josiali Quincy, who still survives, one of the brightest orna- 
ments of a departed age, m. the enjoyment of the reverent homage 
of our own, was also among the visitors of this respectable cu'cle. 
Mrs. Adams, referring to his arrival in the city, writes, " This young 
man is a rare instance of hereditary eloquence and ingenuity, in 
the fourth generation. He comes into life with every advantage 



I 




MlM> 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 401 

of family, fortune, and education, and I wish him all the success 
which such auguries naturally present to him in prospect. I yes- 
terday, in the presence of half a dozen senators, laughingly ad- 
vised him to go to the President and Mrs. Washington and ask 
their leave to make his addresses to Nelly Custis, or her sister, at 
Georgetown. The young gentleman blushed, and he may have 
left his heart in Boston; hut I think him tlie first match in the 
United States." 

An intimate friend of Wolcott, Ames, Sedgwick, and other New 
England statesmen, was Jeremiah Smith, then a member of Con- 
gress, and afterward one of the justices of the Supreme Court, and 
Chief Justice of New Hampshire. He dressed very carefully, had 
an intelligent and handsome face, and was a great beau ; but was 
at the same time diligent in the performance of his duties, and " a 
devourer of all good books." He had been in love so many times 
that it would have tasked his patience to give a list of the girls he 
had been inclined to woo, and every year some new one was the 
fairest and the dearest. In 1T93 he wiites : "It seems to me now 
that I never sincerely loved before. God grant that time and ab- 
sence may have their usual effects.^'' His prayer was granted, and 
in 1795 he discloses another flame to his friend Fletcher. "Tell 
Mrs. Fletcher," he says, " that I should have been very happy to 
have made one of your little family party at Christmas, and that I 
am confident she enjoyed far more pleasure, surrounded by her 
children and friends, than Mrs. Dexter at Mr. Bingham's or Mr. 
Morris's or even the President's sumptuous dinner. I was singularly 
happy on that day myself ; I dined with a number of my friends 
at Mr. Wolcott's, and spent the evening in company with a divine 
woman I have lately become acquainted with, and who is all that 
woman can or ought to be ; but, heigh ho ! she is as good as mar- 
ried. I am glad I was informed of that circumstance, else I should 
51 



402 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

have been over liead and ears in love. Informed of my danger, 1 
find it difficult to restrain my ardent affections. I am glad to find 
that I am not dried up and congealed, but that my heart is as sus- 
ceptible as ever. I would rather be a man, and feel as one, even if 
I suffer by it, than one of your insensible devils." The divine wo- 
man referred to was Miss Eliza Ross, of Bladensburg, in Maryland, 
then on a visit to Philadelphia. The case was very serious, and 
there were no hopes of the lover's recovery. He gave vent to his 
feehngs in verse, which was perfectly intelligible, though scarcely as 
melodious as the songs of Anacreon Moore : 

" To Adam paradise was given, 
Blooming with all that charms the sense 
Of fruits, one only was forbidden, 
And that occasioned sore complaints. 
How much severer is my fate 
Than his ! Unjust ! how could he grieve ? 
He was denied the precious fruit, 
But I, alas ! deprived of Eve ! 
Nay, more — severer still my case — 
A double pain, without alloy — 
The fruit that I 'm forbid to taste, 
Another freely may enjoy." 

Women are changeable, and Miss Ross became Mrs. Smith, after 
all. A few months passed, during which she returned to Bladens- 
burg, and managed to quarrel with her old lover ; at least the en- 
gagement was broken oft'; and in May, 1795, she was again in the 
metropolis. On the departure of a sister for the country she ad- 
dressed a note to her rejected admu'er : " I have very few acquaint- ' 
ances," she said, " and this is the time when the company of a friend 
would be most agreeable. In you I expect that friend." She was 
not disappointed. In due time the veteran gallant wrote to his 
brother that he was a " happy man." On the way to the bride's 
home he lost his wedding suit, and was obliged therefore to " stand 



LIFEINTHECAPITAL. 403 

up " in his travelling clothes, which was a serious misfortune, as he 
had been very particular in his outfit.* 

Elizur Goodiich writes to Wolcott in 1794, introducing Eli 
Whitney, with his famous cotton gin. He describes him as " a 
young gentleman who has occasionally resided in my family for 
some years past, of very fau^ reputation in academic studies, and 
perhaps inferior to none in an acquaintance with mechanic powers, 
and those branches of mechanical philosophy which are apphcable 
to the commerce and manufactm'es of our country. He is on a 
journey to Philadelphia to lodge a model and receive a patent for 
a machine which he has invented for cleansing cotton from its seeds." 

Another candidate for the honors of scientific discovery was 
Dr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, the hero of Fessenden's " Terrible 
Tractoration." John Adams, in February, 1796, thus notices his 
advent in the city : " There is a Dr. somebody here from Connec- 
ticut, who pretends, with an instrument made of some kind of me- 
tal or composition of metals, by a sort of Mesmerian rubbing, or 
stroking, or conjuration, to cure rheumatisms, headaches, pleurisies, 
and I know not what. Ellsworth will not say that he believes in' 
it, but he states facts and tells stories. I expect the heads of all 
the old women will be turned. They have got him into the Presi- 
dent's house, among some of his servants, and Mrs. Washington 

* Smith writes : " Three miles before I reached Bladensburg I had the misfortune to lose my 
trunk, -with all my clothes, of the value of two hundred dollars. The fastening untied, and 
some very great knaves happening to live in the vicinity, picked it up before the stage-driver 
returned to look for it, which was in less than fifteen minutes " A list of the articles constitutiug 
the bridegroom's wardrobe is given by his biographer, Mr. Morrison, as follows : "A light-colored 
broadcloth coat, with pearl buttons ; breeches of the same cloth ; ditto, black satin ; vest, swans- 
down, buff, striped ; ditto moleskin, chequer figure ; ditto satin figured ; ditto, Marseilles, white ; 
ditto, muslinet, figured ; under vest, faced with red cassimere ; two ditto, flannel ; one pair of flan- 
nel drawers ; one ditto, cotton ditto ; one pair black patent silk hose; one ditto white ditto ; one 
ditto striped ditto ; ten or a dozen white silk hose ; three pair of cotton hose ; four pair of gauze 
ditto ; a towel ; six shirts; twel've neek-kerchiefs ; six pocket handkerchiefs, one of them a ban- 
danna; a chintz dressing-gown ; a pair of silk gloves; ditto old kid ditto." 



404 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

told me a story on Tuesday, before a number of gentlemen, so in 
effably ridiculous that I dare not repeat it. Tbe venerable lady 
laugbed as immoderately as all the rest of us did." Perkins went 
to London, and became famous and ricli. His bouse was crowded 
witb bishops, lords, and men and women of every degree, thou- 
sands of whom certified that they were cured of diseases by the 
metallic tractors. The satire of Fessenden ended the delusion. 

VII. 

It was among the offences of the President in which the demo- 
cratic writers and orators discovered signs of treasonable conspiracy 
and a determination to engraft upon our youthful republicanism the 
forms at least of a monarchy, that he had " birth-day odes." It is 
not stated that an appropriation from the treasury was ever de- 
manded for the payment of a laureate, and perhaps it was all the 
worse that so many were willing to sing the praises of Washington 
without reward. The Chief himself, however, we may readily be- 
lieve, would have dispensed with such service to be relieved of the 
necessity of reading the quires of poor but patriotic verses addressed 
to him. Our poets of that day had no mean opinion of their own 
abilities, and they were generous iu each other's praise. Humphreys, 
in a " Poem cm the Happiness of America," written before the close 
of the revolution, exclaims : 

" Why sleep'st thou, Barlow, child of genius ? why 
Seest thou, blest Dwight, our land in sadness lie ? 
And where is Trumbull, earliest boast of fame ? 
'T is yours, ye bards, to wake the smothered flame — 
To you, my dearest friends, the task belongs, 
To rouse your country with heroic songs." 

And Barlow, in his " Vision of Columbus," 

" With keen-eyed glance through Nature's walks to pierce, 
With all the powers and every charm of verse. 



LIFEINTHECAPITAL. 405 

Each science opening in his ample mind, 

His fancy glowing, and his taste refined. 

See Trumbull lead the train. His skilful hand ^ 

Hurls the keen darts of satire through the land ; 

Pride, knavery, dulness, feel his mortal stings. 

And listening Virtue triumphs while he sings. . . . 

On glory's wing to raise the ravished soul 

Beyond the bounds of earth's benighted pole, 

For daring Dwight the epic muse sublime 

Hails her new empire in the western clime. . . . 

Where Freedom's cause his patriot bosom warms. 

In council sage, nor inexpert in arms. 

See Humphreys, glorious from the field retire, 

Sheath the glad sword and string the sounding lyre." 

And besides tliis " mutual admii*ation society " of Connecticut, tliere 
were Allen, Ladd, Freneau, Hopkinson, Livingston, Smith, Mar- 
koe, and some lialf dozen others, who consoled themselves for con- 
temporary neglect with dreams of posthumous fame. 

Though Colonel Humphreys must be regarded as the poet lau- 
reate of Washington, as diligent in the performance of the duties 
of his office as ever was bard expecting pipes of choicest wine for 
votive songs, yet there was a " tuneful throng " of the other sex, 
ever ready to celebrate the hero's virtues and his actions in effusions 
sufficiently indicative of an anxiety to attract his favorable atten- 
tion. Our most conspicuous poetesses of that day were Mrs. Fer- 
guson, of whose unpublished writing there are still two large 
quarto volumes in the Philadelphia Library; Mrs. Bleecker, of 
Tomhannik ; Mrs. Warren, the sister of James Otis ; Mrs. Stock- 
ton, wife of Richard Stockton and sister of Elias Boudinot ; Phillis 
Wheatley, from the Senegal, celebrated by Mr. Clarkson and the 
Abbe Gregory as not inferior in hterary excellence to the fairest 
of her rivals ; and Mrs. Morton, wife of the Attorney General of 
Massachusetts, to be named in whose verses, her critics said, was to 
be immortalized. The Boston Mercury, in the spring of 1*793, ad- 
vised the world that " Falme, ever listening with dehght to the lyre 



406 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

of ' Philenia,' had lately been assiduous in circulating the informa- 
tion that this favorite of the muse was composing a poem, of the 
epic nature, in which would he celebrated some of the most striking 
features of the revolution in this country." This was the first an- 
nouncement of Mrs. Morton's " Beacon Hill ; " and a contemj)orary 
bard, Kobert Treat Paine, warmed with the intelligence, addressed 
to her a congratulatory ej)istle, in which he says -— 

" Beacon shall live, the theme of future lays j 
Philenia bids ; obsequious Fame obeys ; 
Beacon shall live, embalmed in verse sublime, 
The new Parnassus of a nobler clime. 
No more the fount of Helicon shall boast 
Its peerless waters or its suitor host. . . . 
'T is here Philenia's muse begins her flight, 
As Heaven elate, extensive as the light ; 
Here, like this bird of Jove, she mounts the wind, 
And leaves the clouds of vulgar bards behind ! " 

And in conclusion he asks — 

" What hero's bosom would not wish to bleed — 
That you might sing, and raptured ages read ? " 

Mrs. IMorton was not ungi'ateful, and she returned Mr. Paine'a 
compliments in kiad, amiably describing him as a poet 

" Who now with Homer's strength can rise, 
Then with the polished Ovid move ; 
Now swift as rapid Pindar flies, 
Then soft as Sappho's breath of love." 

After the publication of Gifford's satii^e, and Erskine's speech 
m the case of Williams against Faulder, " Anthony Pasquin " was 
driven from England by contempt, and " Delia Crusca " by derision, 
and both found an asylum in the United States — the profligate 
libeller to become the editor of a democratic journal, and the sick- 
ly sentimentalist to acquu^e an influence over our fledgling poets 
not less apparent than that which Tennyson has exerted in later 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 407 

years. IVIi's. Morton, in some " lines addressed to tlie inimitable 
author of the poems nnder the signature of ' Delia Crusca,' " gi'eeted 
him in a style worthy of the Florence ]\Iiscellan7 — 

" Across the vast Atlantic tide, 
Down Appalachia's grassy side, 
What echoing sounds the soul beguile, 
And lend the lip of grief a smile ! 
T is Delia Crusca's heavenly song 
Which floats the western breeze along, 
Breathing as sweet, as soft a strain, 
As kindness to the ear of pain ; 
Splendid as noon, as morning clear, 
As chaste as evening's pearly tear." 

Dr. Ladd, Mr. Paine, and nearly all our " female poets," in the 
closing years of the last century, were servile imitators of Mr. 
Merry, and the late Judge Story began his career as an author in 
an elaborate performance not unworthy of such a master. 

VIII. 

In painting the country was more fortunate. Woolaston, Cop- 
ley, Blackbm-n, and some others, had produced a great number of 
admirable portraits before the war, and subsequently there were 
several artists here of remarkable excellence in the same line. 
Washington was frequently painted, but there are not many good 
pictures of him. In 1785 he wrote to Judge Hopkinson, "I am 
so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil that I am now 
altogether at their beck, and sit ' like Patience on a monument ' 
while they are delineating the lines of my face. It is a proof, 
among many others, of what habit and custom may accomplish ; 
at first I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the 
operation, as a colt is under the saddle ; the next time I submitted 
very reluctantly, but with less flouncing ; now no dray-horse moves 
more readily to his thill than I to the painter's chaii\" This was 



408 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

written on tlie introduction of Kobert Edge Pine to liim. Pine 
had been a "painter to His Majesty," and among Lis sitters inLon 
don had been Garrick and other famous wits. He came to Amer- 
ica in 1783 to paint the chiefs of the revolution, for a series of 
historical compositions, and accumulated a great number of heads 
and other studies, but never finished any large work of that kind. 
In a few years Trumbull occupied the field, and by his success per- 
haps discouraged further attempts by him. He was an irritable 
little gentleman, and his wife and daughters were also very small. 
They painted portraits in Philadelphia and gave lessons in drawing 
there, under the patronage of Robert Morris. Hopkinson men- 
tions as a proof o^ our subsequent advancement in civilization that 
Pine brought to this country a plaster cast of the Venus de IMedici, 
but kept it very privately, as the manners of the time would not 
permit the public exhibition of such a figure : a fact which may 
seem strange to those who remember that some of the celebrated 
women of this period exposed their own finely-developed persons 
in a manner to shock even young Frenchmen, fresh from the gayest 
society of Paris ; but it was then the fashion, in London as well 
as in New York and Philadelphia, to imitate the costume of pic- 
tures painted in the most dissolute period of English morals. 

M. Du Cimetiere, a Genevan, arrived in Philadelphia about the 
year 1760, and lived there nearly thirty years, practising his pro- 
fession as a painter, and collecting specimens in natural history. 
"Washington says he drew many good likenesses, from the hfe, and 
had them engraved in Paris, for sale ; and besides his own he men- 
tions particularly those of General Gates and Baron Steuben. 

Robert Fulton painted a poor portrait of Washington in 1782, 
who in the following year sat at Rocky Hill, New Jersey, to Wil- 
liam Dunlap and Joseph Wright. Wright's pictm-e was sent to 
Europe as a present from the Chief to the Count de Solms. 



LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 409 

M. Houdon arrived from France in 1^85, in the same-sMp witli 
Dr. Franklin, and, proceeding to Mount Vernon, remained tliere two 
weeks, in wMcli time lie modelled tke liead of the General for Ms 
Btatue whicli had heen ordered by the state of Virginia, and is 
now in the capitol at Richmond. 

Soon after the inaugm-ation, in New York, Edward Savage, a 
miserable painter, copied the President's features as well as he 
could, for Harvard College, and his portrait was engraved by 
young Edwin, in a very creditable manner, though Savage took 
the credit of its execution on the copper as well as on the canvas. 
About the same time Madame de Brehan, sister of the French 
minister, made two small portraits of him, one of which he present- 
ed to Mrs. Bingham. The other was engraved in Paris. 

Trumbull had painted a head of Washington, from memory, in 
1780. In the fall of 1789 he returned from Europe, and soon after 
executed the portrait which is in the New York City Hall ; and in 
1792, in Philadelphia, that which is in the gallery at New Haven. 
The city of Charleston had engaged him to paint a full-length of 
the President, and he says " he undertook it con amore^ meaning to 
give his military character in the most sublime moment of its exer- 
tion — the evening previous to the battle of Princeton, when, viewing 
the vast superiority of the approaching enemy, and the impossibility 
of again crossing the Delaware or retreating down the river, he 
conceived the plan of returning by a night march into the country 
from which he had just been driven, thus cutting off the enemy's 
communication and destroying his stores at Brunswick." " I told 
the President my object," he says ; " he entered into it warmly, 
and, as the work advanced, we talked of the scene, its dangers, its 
almost desperation." He looked again as if animated by the feel- 
ings of the conflict, and the artist pleased himself with a belief 
that he had transferred to the canvas the lofty expression of the 
52 



410 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

hero's countenance. But this production did not give satisfaction ; 
the people of Charleston desired a " matter-of-fact likeness, calm, 
tranquil, peaceful," and Washington sat again, for such a picture. 
In 1791 and 1792 Trumhull painted a great numher of portraits, 
among which were those of John Jay, Temple FranMin, IVIi-s. Wash- 
ington (with a full rosy face, and in a white dress, and cap — very 
matronly), Nelly Custis, Sophia Chew, Harriet Chew, Cornelia 
Schuyler (a sister of Mrs. Hamilton, afterward married to Mr. 
Van Eensselaer), Julia Seymour, who was a celebrated beauty, and 
two daughters of Jeremiah Wadsworth. 

In 1791 Mr. Archibald Eobertson, of Aberdeen, arrived in this 
country, bearing from the Earl of Buchan an introductory letter to 
Washinixton, and a box made from the oak tree which sheltered 
Sir William Wallace, after the battle of Falkii^k, which the Gold- 
smith's Company of Edinburgh had previously presented to the 
earl. Mr. Eobertson painted a very good portrait of the President, 
which was sent to Scotland, by Ikii\Lear,in 1794, and he afterward 
pursued his profession with success for many years in New York. 

Giuseppe Ceracchi, one of the most eminent of contemporary 
sculptors, had conceived in Eome a design for a monument of the 
American revolution, and coming to Philadelphia, in 1791, he pre- 
pared a model of it, which was much admii'ed. It was to be of statu- 
ary marble, one hundred feet high, and to cost but thii'ty thousand 
dollars. This sum, however, could not be obtamed, and Ceracchi re- 
turned to Europe, and was subsequently put to death for an attempt 
to assassinate Napoleon. While here he executed busts of Wash- 
ington and many other distinguished characters. He invited Dr. 
Hugh Williamson to sit for one, and that person made himself ap- 
pear exceedingly ridiculous by the puerile manner in which he de- 
clined the compliment. 

In a collection which I have made of more than sixty engraved 




^i^^^^plllii 



llj|||i!i||fl 





MO^^. (DISiiiaJLlSS (SAmm(S)]lIL. JIILTM , 



MUHUJCSTT CSEfrJ 



■^ . / 






LIFE IN THE CAPITAL. 411 

portraits of Washington published during his hfe — probably the 
largest collection of the kind in existence — I find three which pur- 
port to be from paintings by Charles Wilson Peale. One, painted 
at Mount Vernon in 1770, was engraved by R. Scott ; another, 
painted in 1780, was engraved in mezzotint by Peale himself; and 
the third, from a picture dated 1783, was engraved the following 
year in Paris. Mr. Peale painted fourteen portraits of Washington, 
but probably not more than four or five of them were from life. 
His brother James painted two, and his son Rembrandt one. 

It has frequently been stated that Mr. Wertmiiller, a German, 
painted a portrait of Washington, from life, in 1783; but there is 
no evidence that the President ever sat to him. 

Gilbert Stuart, after a brilliant career in London, established 
himself for a short time in New York. Soon after his arrival Judsre 
Gushing, who happened then to be in the city, invited him to tea, and 
Mrs. Gushing refers to him in her diary as " an extraordinary limner, 
said to excel by far any other in America." His reputation was so 
high indeed that everybody who was rich enough to pay his price 
was anxious to sit to him, and he produced with great rapidity a 
large number of portraits. But a desire to paint Washington had 
been one of the chief causes of his return to the United States, and 
he was impatient to begin his work. His fii'st picture was un- 
successful, but the second was in every respect masterly, and the 
artist and the subject were equally pleased with it. Only the head 
was finished. From this he made more than twenty copies. Of 
his four or five full-lengths, the first was sent by Mr. Bingham* as 

* Before sitting for this picture Washington -wrote to Stuart the following note : " Sir : I am 
under promise to Mrs. Bingham to sit for you to-morrow at nine o'clock; and wishing to know 
if it is convenient to you that I should do so, and whether it shall be at your own house, (as she 
talked of the state house,) I send this note to you to ask information. I am, sir, your obedient 
eervant, Geo. WAsmNGTON. Monday evening, 11th April, 1796." He sat at Stuart's own house, 
and was accompanied several times by Harriet Chew, (afterwards Mrs. Carroll,) whose convei*- 
sation he said should give his face its most agreeable expression. 



412 THE KEPUBLICAN COUKT. 

a present to Lord Lansdowne, and tlie last is now in Fanneil IlaE 
in Boston. 

A bust of Wasliington was modelled by a Mr. Gullaglier, of 
Boston, in 1789 ; a mucli better one was produced by Mr. Eccles- 
ton, of Virginia, in 1796. The last portrait of bim was in crayon, by 
Sbarpless, drawn tbe same year. 

Among tlie miniature painters of the time of Washington Ben- 
jamin Trott held a conspicuous rank ; but, no artist in this depart- 
ment is deserving of comparison with Edward Malbone, for j)ro- 
priety and grace, or the details of finished execution. " The Hours " 
show what capacities he had for composition, but his vocation was 
for portraiture, and notwithstanding the depreciation of this branch 
of art by its professors or by others, " the power of animating and 
dignifying the coimtenance, and impressing on it the appearance of 
wisdom and virtue, requii-es," as Sir Joshua Reynolds well observes, 
" a nobleness of conception which goes beyond any thing in the 
mere exhibition of even the most perfect forms." When Mr. Mon- 
roe was in London, on his way to France, as minister to that coun- 
try, Mr. West said to him, " I have seen a picture painted by a 
young man of the name of Malbone, which no man in England 
could excel ; " and other critics, of authority as high as that of the 
President of the Royal Academy, have declared that there are 
even now in the most famous collections no miniatures comparable 
to those of our ingenious countryman, whose works continue to be 
cherished among the choicest treasures of the few families who em- 
ployed him at the close of the last and the beginning of the present 
century. The beauties of the time of Washington were for the 
most part somewhat faded before Malbone was fairly started in his 
career ; but this volume is adorned by an engraving from one of 
his works, alike remarkable for fidehty and a simple and chaste 
elegance rarely displayed in such performances. 



THE CONCLUSION. 
I. 

As tlie second term of his administration drew near its end, many 
of tlie friends of Washington urged him to continue for another 
pei'iod of four years at the head of affairs ; but it was impossible 
to change his purpose of retiring to private life. He was deeply 
wounded by the profligacy of his enemies, and on the twelfth of 
June, 1796, wrote to Colonel Humphreys, who was still in Portu- 
gal : " The gazettes will give you a pretty good idea of the state 
of politics and parties in this country, and will show you at the 
same time, if Bache's Aurora is among them, in what manner I am 
attacked for persevering steadily in measures which to me appear 
necessary to preserve us, during the conflicts of belligerent powers, 
in a state of tranquilhty. But these attacks, unjust and unpleasant 
as they are, will occasion no change in my conduct, nor will they 
produce any other effect in my mind than to increase the solicitude 
which long since has taken fast hold of my he^rt, to enjoy in the 
shades of retirement the consolation of believing that I have ren- 
dered to my country every service to which my abilities were com- 
petent — not from pecuniary or ambitious motives, nor from a 
desire to provide for any men farther than their intrinsic merit en- 
titled them, and surely not with a view of bringing my own rela- 



414 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

tions into office. Malignity tlierefore may dart its shafts,' but nc 
eartlily power can deprive me of tlie satisfaction of knowing that 
I Imve not in the whole course of my administration committed an 
intentional error." 

With Mr. Jefferson the President had mamtained an occasional 
and formal intercourse up to this period. On the sixth of July, 
between three and four weeks after the above sentences were sent 
to Colonel Humphreys, he addressed to the chief of the democratic 
party a final communication, in which he says : " Until within the 
last year or two I had no conception that parties would or even 
could go the length I have been witness to ; nor did I believe, un- 
til lately, that it was within the bounds of probability, hardly 
within those of possibility, that, while I was using my utmost ex- 
ertions to establish a national character of our own, independent, 
as far as our obligations and justice and truth would permit, of 
every nation of the earth, and wished by steering a steady course 
to preserve this country from the horrors of a desolating war, I 
should be accused of being the enemy of one nation, and subject 
to the influence of another ; and, to prove it, that every act of my 
administration would be tortured, and the grossest and most insidi- 
ous representations of them made, by giving one side only of a 
subject, and that too in such exaggerated and indecent terms as 
could scarcely be applied to a Nero, a notorious defaulter, or even 
to a common pickpocket. But enough of this. I have already 
gone further in the expression of my feelings than I intended." 
This brought the correspondence of the founders and heads of the 
rival parties to a final conclusion. 

In the following September, nearly six months before the end 
of his administration, he published his Farewell Address to the 
People of the United States, the most dignified exhibition of polit- 
ical wisdom that ever emanated from the mind of a statesman. It 



THE CONCLUSION. 415 

was generally received by tlie legislatures and the people with the 
respect which was due to such a display of feeling and understand- 
ing, from so exalted a character, and it has continued to be an in- 
fluence and an authority, in the affairs of the nation, second only to 
the Constitution itself. 

In December the two houses of Congress came together, and 
the President delivered, ui person, as was his custom, his last mes- 
sage, at the close of which he said, " The situation in which I now 
stand, for the last time, in the midst of the representatives of the 
people of the United States, naturally recalls the period when the 
administration of the present form of government commenced ; and 
I cannot omit the occasion to congratulate you and my country on 
the success of the experiment, nor to repeat my fervent supplica- 
tions to the Supreme Ruler and Arbiter of nations, that his care 
inay still be extended to the United States ; that the virtue and 
happiness of the people may be preserved ; and that the govern- 
ment which they have instituted for the protection of their liber- 
ties may be perpetual." 

II. 

The sixty-fifth anniversary of the birth-day of "Washington was 
celebrated with an unusual but a saddened enthusiasm. Every one 
felt that it was the last occasion of the kind on which he would be 
present in Philadelphia, and that the illustrious Chief would him- 
self see but few returns of it any where. The ships in the harbor 
displayed their gayest colors ; the bells of the chm^ches every half 
hour during the day rang merry peals ; and the members of Con- 
gress and other official characters, with a great number of the most 
respectable private citizens, waited on the President at his residence 
to offer in person their homage and congratulations. In the even- 
ing there was a splendid ball at the amphitheatre. The area usu- 



416 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

ally occupied by tlie equestrians was floored over for dancing, and 
the wliole interior was tastefully and profusely ornamented with, ever- 
greens, the symbols of his fame, and with banners and inscri]3tions. 
Upon an elevated platform was a sofa, with a canopy over it, for 
the President and Mrs. Washington. He did not confine himself 
to this, but moved about, conversing familiarly with the company, 
consisting of the foreign ambassadors, members of the cabinet, 
senators, representatives, and the most distinguished strangers and 
inhabitants of the city. Jeremiah Smith, writing at eleven o'clock 
the same evening, tells us that there were present five hundred 
ladies, elegantly dressed, and a still greater number of gentlemen. 
" The President and Mrs. Washington," he says, " were in very good 
spirits, and, I am persuaded, have not spent so agreeable an even- 
ing for a long time. Every countenance bespoke pleasure and ap- 
probation ; even democrats forgot for a moment their enmity, and 
seemed to join heartily in the festivity." 

A few days before his final retirement the President held his 
last formal levee. It was attended not only by the beauty and 
fashion of the metropohs, but by a larger number of eminent men 
than had ever been present on a similar occasion. The leading 
democratic journal, " The Aurora," had a few days previously given 
expression to the feelings of its party in a characteristic article, in 
which it was alleged that " if ever a nation was debauched by a 
man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington ; if 
ever a nation was deceived by a man, the American nation has been 
deceived by Washington ;" and the poor wretch, Thomj^s Paine, 
had addressed a public letter to the President, in which he said, 
"As to you, sir, treacherous in private friendship, and a hypocrite 
in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are 
an apostate or an impostor, whether you have abandoned good 
principles, or whether you ever had any; "and when a resolution 



THE CONCLUSION. 417 

was offered in tlie House of Representatives, complimenting liim on 
his approacliing release from tlie cares of government, Andrew Jack- 
son, who had lately become a member of Congress, witli twenty 
others, voted against it ; yet at this last levee the respectability of 
the country was largely represented — the men who were most emi- 
nent for talents and for honorable actions came, in crowds, to offer 
a reverence the most sincere and affectionate that ever was yielded 
to human greatness. 

On the second of March Washington wrote to his old friend 
General Knox : " To the wearied traveller, who sees a resting-place, 
and is bending his body to lean thereon, I now compare myself; 
but for me to be suffered to do this in peace, is too much to be en- 
dured by some ; to misrepresent my motives, to reprobate my poli- 
tics, and to weaken the confidence which has been reposed in my 
administration, are objects which cannot be rehnquished by those 
who wHl be satisfied with nothing short of a change in our politi- 
cal system. The consolation, however, which results from conscious 
rectitude, and the approving voice of my country, unequivocally 
expressed by its representatives, deprives their sting of its poison, 
and places in the same point of view both the weakness and the 
mahgnity of their efforts. Although the prospect of retirement is 
most grateful to my soul, and I have not a wish to mix again in 
the great world, or to partake in its pohtics, yet I am not without 
my regrets at parting with (perhaps never more to meet them) the 
few intimates whom I love, and among these, be assured, you are 
one. The account given by Mr. Bingham and others of your agree- 
able situation and prospects, at St. George's, gave me infinite plea- 
sm'e, and no one wishes more sincerely than I do that they may 
increase with your years. The remainder of my life, which in the 
com'se of nature cannot be long, will be occupied in rural amuse- 
ments ; and though I shall seclude myself as much as possible from 
53 



418 THE EEPUBLICAN COURT 

the noisy and Ibustling crowd, none would more tlian myself be re- 
galed by the company of those I esteem, at Mount Vernon — more 
than twenty miles from which, after I arrive there, it is not likely 

that I shall ever be To-morrow, at dinner, I shall, as a servant 

of the public, take my leave of the President elect, of the foreign 
characters, the heads of departments, &c., and the day following, 
with pleasure, I shall witness the inauguration of my successor in 
the chair of government." 

To this dinner as many were invited as could be accommodated 
at the President's table. Among them were Mr. and Mrs. Liston, 
the Marquis and Marchioness d'Yrujo, and the other foreign minis- 
ters, with their wives ; Mr. and Mrs. Pickering, Mr. and Mrs. Wol 
cott, Mr. and Mrs. McHenry, Mr. and [Mis. Gushing, Mr. and Mrs. 
Bingham,* Mr. Adams, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Jefferson, and Bishop 
White. " During the dinner," says the bishop, " much hilarity 
prevailed ; but on the removal of the cloth it was put an end to by 
the President — certainly without design. Having filled his glass, 
he addressed the company, with a smile on his countenance, saying, 
' Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time I shall drink your 
health, as a public man. I do it with sincerity, and wishing you 

* The fate of Mrs. Bingham, so frequently mentioned in these pages, presents an <affecting 
example of the uncertainty of earthly honors and enjoyments. Returning from a party of plea- 
sure, soon after the birth of her only son, exposure to the cold, in a sleigh, brought on a malady 
■which -was soon perceived to be dangerous. A milder climate was recommended, and a vessel 
fitted -with great care for her transport to the Bermudas. Her departure, on a palanquin, from 
her splendid mansion to this vessel, which, it was generally apprehended, would never restore 
her to her friends, was an event which attracted the gaze of hundreds. Climate could produce 
no benefit, and after some months of gradual but sure decline, she expired in those islands, on 
the eleventh of May, 1801, at the age of thirty-seven. Iler husband, overwhelmed with the 
loss of such a wife, went afterwards to England, and died at Bath, about the year 1804. Ilis 
monument, in the abbey church there, attracts the notice of the American traveller. Mrs. 
Bingham left three children. Her eldest daughter, Anne, who died in 1848, married Alexander 
Baring, the late Lord Ashburton, and was the mother of the present peer. The second, Maria, 
married, first, Alexandre, Comte de Tilly ; second, Henry Baring ; and, third, le Marquis de 
Blaisel. She died, I believe, not long since. 



THE CONCLUSION. 419 

all possible happiness.' There was an end of all pleasantry." The 
bishop chanced to turn his eyes toward the wife of the British 
minister, and perceived that her cheeks were suffused with tears. 
Doubtless there were many other such displays of feeling. 

III. 

The next day, at an early hour, Chestnut street in the vicinity 
of Congress Hall was filled with an immense concourse of people, 
anxious to see once more the retiring President. At eleven o'clock 
Mr. Jefferson took his oath as Vice President, in the presence of 
the senate, and that body soon after proceeded to the cham]:)er of 
the representatives, which was densely crowded. Many of the mem- 
bers had yielded their chairs to women, and every place on the 
floor* and in the gallery was occupied. At twelve o'clock Wash- 
ington entered, and was greeted with enthusiastic cheers and the 
wa\dng of bandkerchiefs. IVIr. Adams followed, in a few moments, 
and was received in the same manner. The Chief Justice, Oliver 
Ellsworth, with his associates, Cushing, Wilson, and Iredell, was 
seated at a table in front of the chair of the Speaker, and when he 
had administered the oath of his office to the new President, the 
inaugural speech was delivered, and was heard with a profound at- 
tention. Mr. Adams referred to Washington, as a personage " who, 
by a long course of great actions, regulated by prudence, justice, 
temperance, and fortitude — conducting a people inspired by the 
same virtues, and animated with the same ardent patriotism and 
love of liberty, to independence and peace, to increasing wealth and 
unexampled prosperity — had merited the gratitude of his fellow- 
citizens, commanded the highest praises of foreign nations, and se- 
cured immortal glory with posterity." 

Dr. William Duer, lately President of Columbia College, was a 
spectator of this scene. " At the close of the ceremony," he says. 



420 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

" as the venerable liero moved towards tlie door, tliere was a rush 
frora the gallery that threatened the lives of those who were most 
eager to catch a last look of him who, among mortals, was the first 
object of theu" veneration. Some of us effected an escape by slip- 
ping down the pillars. I succeeded in making good my retreat 
throujrh the outer door, in time to see the retuino; veteran, as he 
waved his hat in return for the cheers of the multitude, while his 
gray locks ' streamed like a meteor to the wind.' Seldom as he 
was known to smile, his face now beamed with radiance and be- 
nignity. I followed him in the crowd to his own door, where, as he 
turned to address the multitude, his countenance assumed a serious 
and almost melancholy expression, his voice failed him, his eyes were 
suffused with tears, and only by his gestures could he indicate his 
thanks, and convey a farewell blessing to the people. This was 
the last I saw of the most illustrious of mankind, and should I live 
a thousand years, I ' ne'er shall look upon his like again.' " As soon 
as Mr. Adams had returned to his residence Washington made him 
a visit, cordially congratulated him, and expressed a wish that his 
administration might be happy, successful, and honorable. In the 
evening he attended an entertainment given by the principal inhab- 
itants of the city, at the amphitheatre. The leading public charac- 
ters, including the foreign ministers, were present, and the place was 
decorated for the occasion with numerous paintings, referring to 
Washington's life and services. One of them was a representation 
of his home on the Potomac, and the surrounding scenery. 

IV. 

Five days after the inauguration of his successor Washington 
set out for Mount Vernon. He was received at all the towns on 
the way with the same enthusiasm which had been manifested du- 
ring his triumphal journey to New York, eight years before. He 



THE CONCLUSION. 421 

was accompanied by Mrs. Wasliington, Miss Eleanor Custis, George 
W. P. Custis, and the son of Lafayette, witli Ms preceptor. The 
other granddaughters of Mrs. Washington were married — one to 
Mr. Law, an English gentleman of considerable fortune, and the 
other to Mr. Peters. Nelly Custis soon after became the wife of 
Washington's nephew, Mr. Lawi'ence Lewis. 

Of his daily life at Mount Yernon he has left us a pleasing de- 
scription. " Having turned aside from the broad walks of political 
into the narrow paths of private life, I shall leave it, for those whose 
duty it is, to consider subjects of this sort, and, as every good citi- 
zen ought to do, conform to whatsoever the ruling powers shall de- 
cide. To make and sell a httle flour, annually, to repair houses 
(going fast to ruin), to build one, for the security of my papers of 
a public nature, and to amuse myself in agricultural and other 
rm-al pursuits, will constitute employment for the few years I have 
to remain on this terrestrial globe. If, also, I could now and then 
meet the friends I esteem, it would fill their measure and add zest to 
my enjoyments ; but if this happens, it must be under my own vine 
and fig-tree, as I do not think it probable that I shall go beyond 
twenty miles from them." On the twenty-ninth of May he wrote, 
" I begin my diurnal course with the sun ; " and having described 
his preparations for the day's business, he proceeds, " by the time 
I have accomplished these matters breakfast (a little after seven 
o'clock) is ready ; this being over, I mount my horse, and ride 
round my farms, which employs me until it is time to dress for din- 
ner, at which I rarely miss seeing strange faces, come, as they say, 
out of respect for me. Pray, would not the word curiosity answer 
as well ? And how different this from having a few social friends 
at a cheerful board ! The usual time of sitting at table, a walk, 
and tea, bring me within the dawn of candle-light, previous to 
which, if not prevented by company, I resolve that as soon as the 



422 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

glimmering taper supplies the place of the great luminary, 1 will 
retire to my writing-taHe and acknowledge the letters I have 
received ; but when the lights are brought, I feel tired, and disin- 
clined to engage in this work, conceiving that the next night will 
do as well. The next night comes, and with it the same causes of 
postponement, and so on. . . . Having given you this history of a day, 
it will serve for a year." In this way passed the closing period of 
his life. When the outrageous conduct of the Fre^^ph Directory 
made it necessary for our government to prepare for war, the aged 
Chief, ever ready to sacrifice his private interests, his happiness, 
and even his fame, for his country, accepted again the office of 
commander of the armies of the United States ; but fortunately 
peace was preserved, and he was not called from his retirement. 

Every one is familiar with the history of the closing scene oi 
his august career. Between ten and eleven o'clock, on the night oi 
Saturday, the fourteenth of December, 1799, he expired. 



In this volume I have attempted in a desultory way to illustrate 
the habits of society and the characteristics of eminent persons, in 
an age the most important and extraordinary in our history. The 
main design has been to exhibit the social rather than the political 
aspects of that time ; but it will readily be perceived that it was 
impossible to do one and not the other. The events which secured 
to this country a popular constitution as a possession for ever, made 
every American a member of the most responsible, difficult, and 
dignified profession which the abihty of man can illustrate — the 
profession of pohtics. By the fundamental law of the country we 
are all hereditary statesmen ; we are all advisers and active du^ectors 
of the administration. " La vie du plus simple particulier dans une 
republique," said the elder and the wiser of the Mirabeaus, " est 



THE CONCLUSION. 423 

plus compliquee que celle d'un lionune en place dans une monar- 
chie." Of this calling of politics may he said what Augustus 
Schlegel has said of authorship, that according to the spiiit in 
which it is pursued, it is an infamy, a pastime, a day-labor, a handi- 
craft, an art, a science, a virtue. It is of the fii'st importance to 
society, and every one in it, that the character and tone of this 
profession should be raised, and maintained at an elevation ; that 
its members should be capable of dealing in it with competent 
ability, and with that temper of confidence that rejects and de- 
spises tricks and intrigue ; that they should be always feeling that 
it involves principles, and not merely personalities; that it is a 
great moral and intellectual science, in which passions and interests 
must play in perpetual subordination to the permanent laws of wis- 
dom and truth ; and that all its acts and all its contests stand in 
such intimate relations with the lofty interests of human virtue and 
human greatness, that the humblest efforts in its cause partake of 
dignity, and its least rewards are truly honorable. Nothing would 
have a more happy influence on the politics of this day, nothing 
raise, expand and purify them, or give them higher significance 
and greater weight, than a study of the private and public charac- 
ters and actions of those who founded our constitution, and watched 
over the earliest development of its principles. To comprehend the 
distinction and the permanent relation between the great parties 
which have divided and will always divide this country, it is indis- 
pensable to resort to the conferences and the conduct of those who, 
in the brighter and better time of the commonwealth, explored the 
depths of that subject with the sagacity of philosophers, and illus- 
trated its extent upon the largest scale of statesmanship. 

" I am not fonder of simpletons in politics than other people 
are," wrote M. Capfigue, " but for the honor of mankind I am 
willing to beheve that men may be clever and still retain perfect 



424 THE KEPUBLICAN COURT. 

probity and good faitli." This difficult art, to carry into public life 
the morals and the sentiments that give grace to private character ; 
to join sincerity and directness of personal deportment with effect- 
iveness and force of political action ; to gain the outward with 
neither soilure nor loss of a more sacred excellence within, seemed 
to be the native inspiration of those extraordinary men who formed 
the entourage of "Washington. They were a band of " Happy 
Warriors," 

" Whose high endeavors were an inward light 
That made the path before them always bright. 
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, 
As tempted more : 

Who, in a state where men are tempted still 
To evil, for a guard against worse ill. 
And what in quality or act is best 
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest, 
StiU fixed good on good alone, and owe 
To virtue every triumph that they know." 

It has not been attempted in this too hasty performance to dis- 
cuss any of those important questions of policy which were sug- 
gested or decided during the earlier adniinistrations. The histories 
of affairs are sufficiently numerous and ample for the inquisitive 
student who would examine the claims which the statesmanship of 
Washington, Adams, Jay, Hamilton, Marshall, and their friends, on 
the one side, and that of Jefferson, Randolph, Giles, Paine, Madison, 
Monroe, and the rest of the opposition leaders, on the other, pre- 
sents for our approval and imitation. But demeanor in the drawing- 
room was then at the seat of government a reflection of temper in 
the cabinet and the senate ; and styles of living and conversation 
were continually referred to in public debates as evidences of po- 
litical tendencies, and causes of apprehended political dangers. To 
illusti'ate the personal qualities of the chief characters of that time, 
by collecting these scant and fragmentary reminiscences of habit. 



THE CONCLUSION. 425 

feeling, and social condition, was therefore a task not less worthy of 
an inquirer respecting the rise of parties and opinions, than of a 
historian of civility. 

The founders and &st administrators of our government were 
intellectually and morally far above the ordinary examples of hu- 
man greatness. A fame as pure and splendid as theu'S is among 
the rarest products of history. The central figure in that group of 
eminent personages was the Father of his Country, and it is de- 
lightful to turn from the humiliating page in which is recorded the 
insults which he suffered for his virtues, to accounts which have 
come down to us of the honors he received from those who more 
justly appreciated his nature and his services. The select circle of 
official and private characters with whom Washington was most 
intimate, comprised an amount of respectability which perhaps was 
never in any royal or imperial court surpassed, and of this circle 
none ever approached him without being either fascinated by his 
grandeur or touched by his goodness. 

The higher domestic life of that period, as revealed in all we 
know of its refinement and elegance, its dignified courtesy and in- 
flexible morality, can be contemplated with only a respectful admi- 
ration. It was in keeping with the frankness and sincerity of as- 
cendant pohtics. Women unhesitatingly evinced their sympathies 
with whatever was generous and honorable in public conduct, but 
rarely if ever in forgetfulness of the requirements of feminine pro- 
priety. Though patriotic they were content to be women still, and 
were anxious for the distinctions of dehcacy and grace. They per- 
ceived that it was their nobility not to be men, but to be women 
worthy of men. In possession of every right with which they were 
endowed by nature, they had no desire to exercise men's prerog- 
atives. There were indeed some shameless females, not unwillinp; 
to exhibit mortification at having been created of a sex whose finer 

54: 



426 THE REPUBLICAN COURT. 

attributes were beyond theii' emulation, and all the poor stuff which 
this class now displays in periodical offences against decency, waa 
spoken and written till it grew too stale even for derision ; but 
these creatures were not in society ; they were regarded only as 
curious monsters. Such wives as those of Washington, Adams, 
Jay, Wolcott, Bradford, and King, had no desire, as Montaigne 
expresses it, " to cover theii' beauties under others that were none 
of theii'S." 



APPEl^DIX. 



I. 

PERSONAL APPEAEANCE OF WASHINGTON, AS DESCRIBED BY SOME 
CONTEilPORARY FOREIGNERS. 

The surpassing greatness of "Washington was seen and felt by every one ■who was permitted 
to come into his presence. The stature and air of other eminent characters have frequently dis- 
appointed their expectations vrhose ideas had been formed by the fame of illustrious actions. 
With those who saw Washington this was never the case. Every thing about him gave assurance 
of a character altogether transcending the ordinary dimensions of humanity. We have des- 
criptions of him by many foreigners who visited this country during his military or his po- 
litical career, but unfortunately none by his most intimate, affectionate, and reverent friends, 
Lafayette, Luzerne, and some others, in the army, or in the earlier diplomatic service of France. 
From those that we have, however, a few are here transcribed. 

In the expedition under the Marshal Count de Rochambeau, which arrived in America in. 

1*780, were Lieutenant General Count Mathieu Dumas, and Major General the Marquis de Chas- 

tellux, both of whom afterward attempted the portraiture of Washington in their Memoirs. Dumas 

introduces him as follows : 

"Generai, "WAeniNGTON, accompanied by the Marquis de Lafayette, repaired in person to the French head- 
quarters. We had been impatient to see the hero of liberty. His dignified address, his simplicity of manners, and 
mild gravity, surpassed our expectation, and won every heart. After having conferred with Count Kochambeau, as 
he was leaving us to return to his head-quarters near West Point, I received the welcome order to accomjiany him as 
far as Providence. We arrived there at night; the whole of tho population had assembled from the suburbs; we 
were surrounded by a crowd of children carrying torches, reiterating tla acclamations of the citizens; all were eager 
to approach the person of him whom they called their father, and pressed so closely around us that they hindered ua 
from proceeding. General Washington was much affected, stopped a few moments, and pressing my hand, said, 'We 
may be beaten by the English ; it is the chance of war ; but behold an army which they can never conc)uer.' " After- 
wards the count conveyed to him some de.spatches, at Mount Vernon. " I recall the impressions which I received 
during the short stay (hat I made In the family of the deliverer of America. The brilliant actions of great men cau- 
n<)t fail to be recalled by history ; the anecdotes of their private life are equally worthy, of being preserved, because 
they often make us better acquainted with the principal traits of their character. The general gave me a most cor- 
dial reception. lie appeared to be highly satisfied with the defpatches which I delivered to liiui, in the presence of 
M. de Lafayette, Colonel Hamilton, his aid-de-camp, and Colonel Humphreys, who performed the duties of chief of 
the .stalf. He withdrew to confer with them. Being inVited to dinner, which was remarkably plain, I had leisure to 
admire the perfect harmony of his noble and fine countenance, with the simplicity of his language and the justice and 
depth of his observations. He generally sat long at table, and animated the conversation by unaffected clieerfulness. 
Much was said of the treachery of Arnold, of the firmness and moderation with which the General had just sujipressed 
the insubordination of the troops of the state of Pennsylvania, and lastly of the situation of Virginia, of tho maiches 
and counter-marches of Lord Cornwallis. I was particularly struck with the marks of affection which the General 
showed to his pupil, his adopted son the Marquis de Lafayette. Seated opposite to him, he looked at him with pleaS' 
are, and listened to him with manifest interest Cue of the company, (if I remember rightly it was Colonel IIamil< 



428 APPENDIX. 

ton, vrho was afterwards so unfortunately and so prematurely snatched ft-om the hopes of his country,) related the 
manner In which the General had received a despatch from Sir Henry Clinton, addressed to Mr. Washington. Taking 
It from the hands of the flag of truce, and seeing the direction, 'This letter,' said he, ' is directed to a planter of thfl 
state of Virginia. I shall have it delivered to him after the end of the war; till that time it shall not be opened.' A 
second despatch was addressed to his Excellency General Washington." 

The description of Washington by the Marquis de Chastellux is endorsed by the anonjTnous 

translator, who was himself familiar with the Chief's personal appearance. lie confesses that it is 

feebly rendered, but declares that " every feature, every tint, of the portrait, will stand the test 

of the severest scrutiny." 

"Here would be the proper place to give the portrait of General Washington ; but what can my testimony add to 
the idea already formed of him? The continent of Xorth America, from Boston to Charleston, is a groat volume, 
every page of which presents his eulogium. I know, that having had the opportunity of a near inspection, and of 
closely observing him, some more particular details may be expected from me ; but the strongest characteristic of this 
respectable man, is the perfect union which reigns between the physical and moral qualities which compose the indi- 
vidual ; one alone will enable you to judge of all the rest. If you are presented with medals of Ca>sar, of Trajan, or 
Alexander, on examining their features, you will still be led to ask what was their stature, and the form of their per- 
sons ; but if you discover, in a heap of ruins, the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not curious about the other 
parts, but rest assured that they all were conformable to those of a god. Let not this comparison be attributed to en- 
thusiasm ! It is not my intention to exaggerate ; I wish only to express the impression General Washington has left 
on my mind — the idea of a perfect whole, which cannot be the product of enthusiasm, which rather would reject it, 
since the effect of proportion is to diminish the idea of greatness. Brave without temerity, laborious without ambi- 
tion, generous without prodigality,_noble without pride, virtuous without severity, he seems always to have confined 
himself within those limits, where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively but more changeable and doubt- 
ful colors, may be mistaken for faults. This is the seventh year that he has commanded the army, and that he has 
obeyed the Congi-ess. More need not be said, especiallj' in America, where they know how to appreciate all the merit 
contained in this simple fact.' Let it be repeated that Cond6 was intrepid, Turenne prudent, Eugene adroit, and 
Catinet disinterested. It is not thus that Washington will be characterized. It will be said of him, at the end of a 
long civil war, he had nothing with which he could reproach himself. If any thing can be more marvellous than 
such a character, it is the unanimity of the public suffrages in his favor. Soldier, magistrate, people, all love and ad- 
mire him ; all speak of him in terms of tenderness and veneration. Does there then exist a virtue capable of restrain- 
ing the injustice of mankind? or, are glory and happiness too recently established in America, for envy to have 
deigned to pass the seas? In speaking of this perfect whole, of which General Washington furnishes the idea, I have 
not excluded exterior form. His stature is noble and lofty ; he is well made and exactly proportioned ; his physiognomy 
mild and agreeable, but such as renders it impossible to speak particularly of any of his features, so that in quitting 
him you have only the recollection of a fine face. He has neither a grave nor a familiar air. His brow is sometimes 
marked with thought, but never with inquietude. Inspiring respect, he inspires confidence, and his smile is always 
the smile of benevolence." 

The Abbe Robix, a French priest attached to the army of Eochambeau as chaplain, and evi 

dently a man of education, refinement, and liberality, gives us the following sketch of "Washing 

ton in his Nouveau Voyage dans VAmerique Septentrionale, pi;blished in Paris in 1*782. 

"I have seen General Washington, that most singular man — the soul and support of one of the greatest revolu- 
tions that has ever happened, or can hapipen. I fixed my eyes upon him with that keen attention which the sight of 
a great man always inspires. We naturally entertain a secret hope of discovering in the features of such illustrious 
persons some traces of that excellent genius which distinguishes them from, and elevates them above their fellow 
mortals. Perhaps the exterior of no man was better calculated to gratify these expectations than that of General 
Washington. lie is of a tall and noble stature, well proportioned, a fine, cheerful, open countenance, a simple and 
modest carriage; and his whole mien has something in it that interests the French, the Americans, and even enemies 
themselves in liis favor. Placed in a military view, at the head of a nation where each individual has a share in tho 
supreme legislative authority, and where coercive laws are yet in a great degree destitute of vigor, wliere tho climate 
and manners can add but little to their energy, where the spirit of party, private interest, slowness and national indo- 
lence, slacken, suspend and overthrow the best concerted measures; although so situated, he has found out a method 
of keeping his troops in the most absolute subordination : making them rivals in praising him ; fearing him even when 
he is silent, and retaining their full confidence in him after defeats and disgrace. Ilis reputation has, at length, arisen 
to a most brilliant height; and he may now grasp at the most unbounded power, without provoking envy or exciting 
suspicion. He has ever shown himself superior to fortune, and in tho most trying adversity has discovered resources 
till then unknown; and, as if his abilities only increased and dilated at the prospect of diOiculty, he is never better 
supplied than when he seems destitute of every thing, nor have his arms ever been so fatal to his enemies, as at the 
very instant when they had thought they had crushed him for ever. It is his to excite a spirit of heroi.sm and enthu 
Biasm in a people, who are by nature very little susceptible of it; to gain over the respect and homage of those whose 
interest it is to refuse it, and to execute his plans and projects by means unknown even to those who are his instru- 
ments; be is intrepid in dangers, yet never seeks them but when the good of Iiis country demands it, preferring rather 
to temporize and act upon the defensive, because he knows snch a mode of conduct best suits the genius and circum- 
stances of tlie nation, and that all he and they have to expect, depends upon time, fortitude, and patience : he is frugai 



APPENDIX. 42S 

»nd sober in regard to himself, but profuse in the public cause ; like Peter the Great, he has by defeats conducted hia 
army to victory; and like Fabius, but with fewer resources and more difficulty, he has conquered without fighting, 
and saved his country. Such are the ideas that arise in the mind, at the sight of this great man, in examining the 
events in which he has had a share, or in listening to those whose duty obliges them to be near his person, and conse- 
quently bsst display his true character. In all these extensive states they consider him in the light of a beneficent 
God, dispensing peace and happiness around him. Old men, women, and children, press about him when he accident- 
ally passes along, and think themselves happy, once in their lives, to have seen him — they follow him through the 
towns with torches, and celebrate his arrival by public illuminations. The Americans, that cool and sedate people, 
■who in the midst of their most trying difficulties, have attended only to the directions and impulses of plain method 
and common reason, are roused, animated, and inflamed at the very mention of his name : and the first songs that 
sentiment or gratitude has dictated, have been to celebrate General Washington." 

Joseph Mandeillon, a French merchant and man of letters, established at Amsterdam, -whence 
he made a voyage to this country, has the following in his Spectateur Americain, published in 178-i : 

" "Why did I not receive from nature the genius and eloquence of the celebrated orators of Greece and Eome ? 
Oh that I could but for a moment snatch their pencils to trace rapidly the picture of the greatest man that America 
has ever produced, and one of the most celebrated that ever existed ! With what energy, with what enthusiasm would I 
not speak of his brilliant virtuosi who is the man that would be jealous of the homage I pay him? who is the man 
that would tax me with flattery ? We are no longer in those barbarous ages in which men oflered incense to tyrants, 
in which they dared to give the name of hero to men addicted to every vice, and whom they dreaded too much to 
offend. We are no longer in those ages when cruel sovereigns had mercenary writers to palliate their crimes, and to 
praise them for virtues they did not possess. Our more enlightened age presents to us in history sovereigns and men as 
they really were ; truth is its character. The public veneration for General Washington is the precious fruit of the sever- 
est examination of his conduct. Jealous of his glory and the approbation of his contemporaries, he enjoys them without 
arrogance and without presumption ; and if he does himself the justice to believe that he merits his celebrity, he like- 
wise knows that posterity, which raises and demolishes statues, will never injure the trophies erected to his memory. 
The hand of a barbarian only, who cannot read, or a savage ignorant of history, with the stroke of a hatchet would 
break his statue, supposing it to be that of a despot. But when from the ruins of the inscription they shall collect 
the name of AVa3hington,the chief of these barbarians orsava^s, instructed by tradition of the American revolution, 
will be avenged for the outrageous' attempt, and cause the monument to be repaired. On its base will be read, ignor- 
ance had overthrown it, and justice again raised it up : mortals revere his memory ! Having been the soul aud sup- 
port of one of the greatest events of the age, it is but just that Washington should pass his days without a cloud, in 
the bosom of repose, of honor and public veneration. Nature sometimes places the soul of an hero in a feeble body ; 
but when we speak of the brilliant actions of a man whose features and stature we are ignorant of, we are inclined to 
paint him as endowed with every valuable gift of nature, and please ourselves with believing that his features bear 
the image of that genius which elevates him above his fellow men. No person is better calculated to maintain this 
opinion than Washington. A proper size, noble and well proportioned, an open countenance, soft and sedate, but 
without any one striking feature, and when you depart from him, the remembrance only of a fine man will remain ; 
a fine figure, an exterior plain and modest, a dignity insinuating, and firm without severity, a manly boldness, an un- 
common penetration to seize the whole of things submitted to his judgment, and a complete experience in war and 
politics; equally useful in the cabinet and in the field of Mars, the idol of his country, the admiration of the enemy 
he has fought and vanquishe<l; modest in victorj', great in the reverse. Why do I say reverse? very far from being 
subdued he has made every misfortune contribute to his success. He knows to obey as well as to command, ho never 
made use of his power or the submission of his army to derogate from the authority of his country or to disobey its 
commands. With a perfect knowledge of man, he knew hoiv to govern freemen in peace, and by his example, hia 
activity, his energy, be taught them to love glory and danger, and to despise the inclemency of the climate and the 
rigors of winter. The soldier, jealous of his praises, feared even his silence; never was general better served and 
obeyed. More thoughtful of his country's glory thfin his own, he never trusted to chance ; his operations marked by 
prudence, had always the preservation of his country for their sole object; he appeared unwilling to possess glory but 
from her alone ; his maxim was always to gain time, to act on the defence, and without attacking his enemies in front, 
he knew how to harass them, to exhaust their iorces by excursions, by surprises of which a great man only can value 
the utility. Like Camillus he forsook the charms of rural life and fiew to the assistance of his country ; like Fabius 
ne saved it by procrastinating ; like Peter the Great he triumphed over his enemies by the experience acquired by 
misfortune. There is not a man, not a monarch in Europe who would not envy the glory of having acted such apart 
as Washington. It is said the king of Prussia sent him a sword with only this direction. The oldest gener.al of the 
old world to the greatest general of the new. If ever mortal fully enjoyed his reputation during his own lifetime, if 
ever a citizen found in his own country a recompense for his services and abilities, it is this hero; every where en- 
tertained, admired, caressed, he every where meets hearts eager to render him homage ; if he enters a town or 
If he passes through a village, old and young men, women and children, all follow him with acclamations; all load 
him with blessings ; in every heert he has a temple consecrated to respect and friendship. How I am delighted 
with representing to myself the French general,* equally the idol and the hero of his army, saying at table as he sat 
near Washington, that he had never known what true glory Tras, nor a truly great man, until he became acquaint- 
ed with him. When America, everthrown by the dreadful revolutions of nature, shall no longer exist, it will be 
remembered of Washington, that he was the defender of liberty, the friend of man, and the avenger of an oppressed 
oeople." 

* Ti» Marshnl Count de Rocliambeaa, 



430 APPENDIX. 

The celebrated Italian poet, Alfieei, ia 1788 addressed his tragedy of The First JBrutus " to 

the most illustrious and free citizen, General Washington," as follows : 

" The name of the deliverer of America alone can stand on the title-page of the tragedy of the deliverer of Rome. 
To you, excellent and most rare citizen, I therefore dedicate this, without first hinting at a part of the S) many praises 
due to yourself, which I now deem all comprehended in the sole mention of your name. Nor can this my slight al- 
lusion to you appear to you contaminated by adulation, since, not knowing you in person, and living disjoined 
from you by the immense ocean, we have but too emphatically nothing between us in common but the love of glory. 
Happy are yon, who have been able to build your glory on the sublime and eternal basis of love to your country, 
demonstrated by actions 1 I, though not born free, yet having abandoned in time my lares, and for no other reason 
than that I might write loftily of liberty, hope by this means at least to have proved what might have been my love 
for my country if I had indeed fortunately belonged to one that deserved the title. In this single respect, I do not 
think myself wholly unworthy to mingle my name with yours." 

Charles James Fox said in the British Parliament on the thirty-first of January, 1794: 

" Illustrious man ! deriving honor less from the splendor of his situation than from the dignity of his mind ! before 
'Whom all borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance ! . . . . I cannot, indeed, help admiring the wisdom and fortune 
of this great man; by the phrase 'fortune' I mean not in the slightest degree to derogate from his merit; but not- 
withstanding his extraordinary talents and exalted integi'ity, it must be considered as singularly fortunate that he should 
have experienced a lot which so seldom falls to the portion of humanity, and have passed through such a variety of 
scenes witliout stain and without reproach. It must indeed create astonishment that, placed in circumstances so criti- 
cal and filling for a series of years a station so conspicuous, his character should never once have been called in ques- 
tion; that he should in no one instance have been accused either ofimproper insolence or of mean submission, in his 
transactions with foreign nations. For him it has been reserved to run the race of glory without experiencing the 
smallest interruption to the brilliancy of his career." 

In 1795, Mr. Ekskine, afterward Lord Erskine, called Washington's attention to a passage in 

the work he had then just written on the Causes and Conseqitences of the War with France, in 

a letter in which he says : 

"I have taken the liberty to introduce your august and immortal name in a short sentence which will be found in 
the book I send you. I have a large acquaintance among the mf)st valuable and exalted cl.isses of men ; but you are 
the only human being for whom I ever felt an awful reverence. I sincerely pray God to grant you a long and serene 
evening to a life so gloriously devoted to the universal happiness of the world." 

II. 

WASniKGTON'S "RULES OF CIVILITY AND DECENT BEHAVIOE, IN COMPANY." 

Among the earlier writings of Washington Mr. Sparks preserves a series of directions as to per- 
sonal conduct, and remarks, very justly, that whoever has studied the character of AVashington 
will be persuaded that some of its most prominent features took Iheir shape from the rules which 
he thus early selected and adopted as his guide. 

1. Every action in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those present. 

2. In the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming noise, nor drum with your fingers or feet 

3. Speak not when others speak, sit not when others stand, and walk not when others stop. 

4. Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking ; jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes , 
loan not on any one. 

5. Be no flatterer, neither play with any one that delights not to bo played with. 

6. Read no letters, books, or papers in company; but when there is a necessity for doing it, yon must ask leave. 
Come not near the books or writings of any one so as to read them, unasked; also, look not nigh when another ia 
•writing a letter. 

7. Let your countenance be pleasant, but in serious matters somewhat grave. 

8. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though he were your enemy. 

9. They that are in dignity or office have in all places precedency ; but whilst they are young, they ought to respect 
those that are their equals in birth or other qualities, though they have no public charge. 

10. It is good manners to prefer them to whom we speak before ourselves, especially If they be above ns, with 
Wtom, in no sort, we ought to begin. 

11. Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive. 

12. In visiting the sick, do not presently play the physician, if you be not knowing therein. 

13. In writing or speaking, give to every person his due title, according to his degree and the custom of the placa 

14. Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty. 
16. Undertake not to teach your equal in the art himself professes; it savors of arrogancy. 



APPENDIX. 431 

i6. When a man does all he can, though it succeeds not well, blame not him that did it. 

17. Being to advise or reprehend any one, consider whether it ought to be in public or in private, presently or at 
gome other time, also in what terms to do it; and in reproving, show no signs of choler, but do it with sweetness and 
mildness. 

18. Mock not, nor jest at any thing of importance ; break no jests that are sharp or biting, and if you deliver any 
.hing witty or pleasant, abstain from laughing thereat yourself. 

19. Wherein you reprove another be unblamable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precept 

20. Use no reproachful language against any one, neither curses nor rovilings. 

21. Be not hasty to believe flying reports, to the disparagement of any one. 

22. In your apparel be modest, and endeavor to accommodate nature rather than procure admiration. Keep to the 
fashion of your equals, such as are civil and orderly with respect to time and place. 

23. Play not the peacock, looking every where about you to see if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, if 
your stockings sit neatly, and clothes handsomely. 

24. Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone 
than in bad company. 

25. Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature, and 
in all causes of passion admit reason to govern. 

26. Be not immodest in urging your friend to discover a secret. ' 
2T. Utter not base and frivolous things amongst grown and learned men : nor very difficult questions or subjects 

amongst the ignorant, nor things hard to be believed. 

28. Speak not of doleful things in time of mirth, nor at the table: speak not of melancholy things, as death and 
wounds, and if others mention them, change, if you can, the discourse. Tell not your dreams but to your intimate 
friends. 

29. . Break not a jest where none take pleasure in mirth. Laugh not aloud, nor at all without occasion. Deride no 
man's misfortune, though there seem to be some cause. 

■SO. Speak not injurious words, neither in jest or earnest. Scoff at none, although they give occasion. 

31. Be not forward, but friendly and courteous, the first to salute, hear and answer, and be not pensive when it is a 
time to converse. 

32. Detract not from others, but neither be excessive in commending. 

83. Go not thitlier, where you know not whether you shall be welcome or not. Give not advice without being 
asked, and when desired, do it briefly. 

84. If two contend together, take not the part of either unconstrained, and be not obstinate in your opinion : In 
things indiiferent be of the major side. 

85. Reprehend not the imperfections of others, for that belongs to parents, masters, and superiors. 

. 36. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others, and ask not how they came. What you may speak in secret to 
your friend, deliver not before others. 

87. Speak not in .in unknown tongue in company, but in your own language ; and that as those of quality do, and 
not as the vulgar. Sublime matters treat seriously. 

88. Think before you speak ; pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily, but orderly and 
distinctly. 

89. When another speaks, be attentive yourself, and disturb not the audience. If any hesitate in his words, help 
him not, nor prompt him without being desired ; interrupt him not, nor answer him till his speech be ended. 

40. Treat with men at fit times about business, and whisper not in the company of others. 

41. Make no comparisons; and if any of the company be commended for any brave act of virtue, commend not 
another for the same. 

42. Be not apt to relate news, if you know not the truth thereof. In discoursing of things you have heard, name 
not your author always. A secret discove: not. 

43. Be not curious to know the aff'airs o! others, neither approach to those that speak in private. 

44. Undertake not what you cannot perform ; but be careful to keep your promise. 

45. When you deliver a matter, do it without passion and indiscretion, however mean the person may be you 
do it to. 

46. When your superiors talk to any body, hear them, neither speak nor laugh. 

47. In disputes, be not so desirous to overcome as not to give liberty to each one to deliver his opinion, and submit 
to the judgment of the major part, especially if they are judgers of the dispute. 

48. Be not tedious in discourse, make not many digressions, nor repeat often the same matter of discourse. 

49. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust 

50. Be not angry at table whatever happens, and if you have reason to be so, show it not, put jn a cheerful coun- 
tenance, especially if there be strangers, for good humor makes one dish a feast. 

51. Set not yourself at the upper end of the table, but If it be your due, or the master of the house will have it so 
contend not lest you should trouble the company. 

52. When you speak of God or his attributes, let it be seriously in reverence and honor, and obey your natural 
parents. 

53. Let your recreations be manful, not sinful. 

54 Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience. 



482 APPENDIX. 

III. 

EXTRACT FROM WASHINGTON'S DIARY, DURING THE FEDERAI. CONVENTION. 

"Wasiiington kept diaries during the greater part of his life. The following extract from that 
■which relates to the period of the Convention for forming the Constitution, discloses some of the 
social intimacies of the Chief in Philadelphia. 

3Iay 9th, 17S7. — Crossed from Mount Vernon to Mr. Digges's a little after sunrise, and, pursuing tlie route Ly the 
•way of Baltimore, dined at Mr. Eichard Henderson's la Bladensburg, and lodged at Major Snowden's, where, feeling 
very severely a violent headache and sick stomach, I went to bed early. 

10th. — A very great appearance of rain in the morning, and a little falling, induced me, though well recovered, to 
•wait till about eight o'clock before I set off. At one o'clock I arrived at Baltimore ; dined at the Fountain Inn, and 
supped and lodged at Dr. McHenry's; rain in the evening. 

lUh. — Set off before breakfast; rode twelve miles to Skirrett's; baited there, and proceeded without halting 
(weather threatening), to the ferry at Havre de Grace, where I dined, but could not cross, the wind being turbulent 
and squally. Lodged there. 

12th. — With difficnlty, on account of the wind, crossed the Susquehanna. Breakfasted at the ferry-house on the 
east side. Dined at the Head of Elk (Hollingsworth's tavern), and lodged at Wilmington. At the Head of Elk I was 
overtaken by Mr. Francis Corbin, who took a seat in my carriage. 

ISth. — About eight o'clock Mr. Corbin and myself set out, and dined at Chester (Mr. Wilky's), where I was met 
by Generals Mifflin (now speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly), Knox, and Varnura, Colonels Humphreys and 
Menges, and Majors Jackson and Nicholas, with whom I proceeded to Philadelphia. At Gray's Ferry the city light- 
horse, commanded by Colonel Miles, met me, and escorted me in ; and the artillery officers, who stood arranged, 
saluted me as I passed. Alighted through a crowd at Mr. House's; but being again warmly and kindly pressed by 
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Morris to lodge with them, I did so, and had my baggage removed thither. Waited on the 
president. Dr. Franklin,* as soon as I got to town. On my arrival the bells were chimed. 

14/A. — This being the day appointed for the Convention to meet, such members as were in town assembled at the 
State-house ; but only two states being represented, namely, Virginia and Pennsylvania, agreed to attend at the same 
place at eleven o'clock to-morrow. Dined in a family way at Mr. Morris's. 

15th. — Eepaired at the hour appointed to the State-house ; but no more states being represented than yesterday, 
though several more members had come in, we agreed to meet again to-morrow. Governor Eandolph from Virginia 
came in to-day. Dined with the members of the general meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati. 

16th. — No more than two states being yet represented, agreed, till a quorum of them should be formed, to alter 
the hour of meeting at the State-house to one o'clock. Dined at the president Dr. Franklin's, and drank tea and spent 
the evening at Mr. John Penn's. 

lltJi. — Mr. Eutledge from Charleston, and Mr. Charles Pinckney from Congress, having arrived, gave a represen- 
tation to South Carolina ; and Colonel Mason, getting in this evening, placed all the delegates from Virginia on the 
floor of the Convention. Dined at Mr. Powel's and drank tea there. 

ISth. — The representation from New York appeared on the floor to-day. Dined at Gray's Ferry, and drank tea at 
Mr. Morris's; after which accompanied Mrs. Morris and some other ladies to hear a Mrs. O'Connell read. The lady, 
being reduced in circumstances, had recourse to this expedient to obtain a little money. Her performance was tolera- 
ble; at the College Hall. 

19th. — No more states represented. Dined at Mr. Ingersoll's ; spent the evening at my lodgings, and retired to my 
room soon. 

20i7i. — Dined with Mr. and Mrs. Morris and other company at their farm, called the Hills ; returned in the after- 
noon, and drank tea at Mr. Powel's. 

21st. — Delaware state was represented. Dined and drank tea at Mr. Bingham's in great splendor. 

22(?. — The representation from North Carolina was completed, which made a representation for five states. Dined 
and drank tea at Mr. Morris's. 

23'^?. — No more states being represented, I rode to General Mifflin's to breakfast; nfler which, in company with 
aim, Mr. Madison, Mr. Rntledge, and others, I crossed the Schuylkill above the Falls; visited Mr. Peters's, Mr. Penn's 
seat, and Mr. William Hamilton's. Dined at Mr. Chew's with the wedding guests (Colonel Howard of Baltimore 
having married his daughter Peggy). Drank tea there in a very large circle of ladies. 

o.ith. — No more states represented. Dined and drank tea at Mr. John Boss's. One of my postillion boys (Paris) 
being sick, requested Dr. Jones to attend him. 

25th. — Another delegate coming in from the state of New Jersey, gave it a representation, and increased the num- 
ber to seven, which forming a quorum of the thirteen, the members present resolved to organize the body; when, by 
a unanimous vote, I was called up to the chair as president. Major William Jackson was appointed secretary ; and a 
eiiminittee was chosen, consisting of three members, to prepare rules and regulations for conducting the business; 
and, after appointing door-keepers, the convention adjourned till Monday, to give time to the committee to report the 
matter referred to them. Eeturned many visits to-day. Dined at Mr. Thomas Wllling's, and spent the evening at 
uy lodgings. 

• rreBideiil of Peiinsylviinia. 



APPENDIX. 433 

26M, — Returned all ray visits this forenoon. Dined with a club at the City Tavern, and spent the evening at my 
4uarters writing letters. 

i7th. — Went to the Eonilsh church to high mass. Dined, drank tea, and spent the evening at my lodgings. 

2St7i,. — Met in convention at ten o'clock. Two states more, namely, Massachusetts and Connecticut, were on the 
floor to-day. Established rules, agreeably to the plan brought in by the con)mittee for the government of the Con- 
vention, and adjourned. Dined at home, and drank tea in a large circle at Mr. Francis's. 

29th. — Attended Convention, and dined at home; after which accompanied Mrs. Morris to the beneiit concert of a 
Mr. Juhan. 

SOW. — Attended Convention ; dined with Mr. Vaughan; drank tea, and spent the evening at a "Wednesday even- 
ing's party at Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence's. 

Slst. — The state of Georgia came on the floor of the Convention to-day, which made a representation of ten states. 
Dined at Mr. Francis's, and drank tea with Mrs. Meredith. 

June 1st. — Attending in Convention ; and, nothing being suffered to transpire, no minutes of the proceedings have 
been, or will be, inserted in this diary. Dined with Mr. John Penn, and spent the evening at « superb entertainment 
at Bush Hill given by Mr. Hamilton, at which were more than a hundred guests. 

2d. — Major Jenifer coming in, with sufficient powers for the purpose, gave a representation to Maryland ; which 
brought all the states in the Union into Convention, except Ehodo Island, which had refused to send delegates. Dined 
at the City Tavern with the club, and spent the evening at my own quarters. 



IV. 

FRENCH CRITICISMS OF AMERICAN ilANNERS AT THE CLOSE OF THE LAST 

CENTURY. 

The Memoires of the Marshal Count de Rochambeau, so far as they relate to America, are for 
the most part military, but he has left us a few paragraphs on society. He says : 

" The first act of Congress was to exclude from political as well as civil assemblies all ecclesiastics without excep- 
tion. Tlie ministers were forced in many communes to abandon their churches, and it was not until peace that several 
of them, having got themselves consecrated by the Lutheran bishops of Denmark and Sweden, were reinstated in 
their livings; by these precautions, religion was prevented from taking a part in political deliberation ; every one pro- 
fessed his own religion with e.vactitude ; the sanctity of the Lord's day was scrupulously observed. At all public 
feasts the minister of religion held the first place; he blessed the repast; but his prerogatives in society extended no 
further. Such preamble must naturally lead to pure and simple manners. Hospitality is the virtue the most generally 
observed. Young women are free till their marriage. The first question addressed to a young woman is whether she 
be married ; if she be, there the conversation rests. It is not uncommon that, at the age of womanhood, they accom- 
pany their father and mother to church, although they have not yet made choice of any particular religion ; if you 
ask them why, they say that they will follow the same religion as their husband. But when they have once entered 
the state of matrimony, they give themselves up entirely to it, and you seldom see, particularly in the rural districts, 
a woman of loose manners. Children are, generally speaking, kept extremely clean. A se'ttler is, at home, neither a 
lord of a manor nor a farmer; he is a proprietor in a full sense of the word, possessing the quantum sufficit of hia 
necessaries, and he lays out the overplus of his crops in the purchases of good and comfortable clothing, without any 
of the exterior appendages of luxury. The same simplicity is observed with regard to his furniture, and unblemished 
cleanliness is its principal merit; but it is not without difficulty that the American settler arrives at this state. 

" I will now explain in what manner these settlements were formed in the origin, and how they still continue to 
be formed. Whereas there is much more land to be cleared than there are hands to cultivate it, laborers are in (Teat 
demand ; a cultivator or day laborer earned, in my time, a piaster of five livres ten sous per diem. It is not uncom- 
mon that a laborer, who works assiduously for fis space of sis years on an average, can accumulate a sufficient sum 
to purchase a piece of ground. They commence by firing the forests, which operation they call clearing. They next 
sow in the furrows every kind of seed, which grows with great abundance on a layer of rotten leaves, reduced to a 
vegetable soil formed at the expiration of many years. They then build their habitation with the round branches of 
the trees, piled one upon another, and propped up by stakes. They enclose their fields with barriers, according to 
their different destinations. They take care to reserve pens, covered over with leaves, to protect their cattle from the 
raia and heavy dew, wherein the animals are enabled to pass the night at large. At the expiration of twenty or thirty 
years, when they have succeeded in fully clearing the ground, they proceed to build more tidy and comfortable houses 
with planks cleverly joined, and wrought with great art But little iron is used in these constructions ; the doors and 
windows being made to fit with remarkable precision by their skilful carpenters. At length, twenty or thirty years 
later, the family's circumstances become more easy, and they then remove to a brick house, the complement of their 
architecture. The latter is composed of a kind of open hall or verandah, a neat drawing-room, which is not scantily 
supplied with fuel during the colder months, and a kitchen next to it. The family sit all the day in their drawing- 
room; they take four meals per day, interrupted only by moderate l.ibor, and a little negro is incessantly occupied in 
spreading and clearing away the cloth. The bedrooms, with very clean and comfortable bedding, are situated on the 
first story, and their walls are whitewashed regularly every year. In the large towns, luxury has made more progress ; 
rich merchants and bankers have provided their residence with costly English furniture; their ladies are clad to tb» 
ip of the French faahions, of which they are remarkably fond." 

55 



434 APPENDIX. 

The Marquis de Chastellux, -whose Voyage dans F Amerique has been frequently quoted in the 
preceding pages, has many observations on the peculiarities of American manners, some of which 
are cntertainiug. Describing a dinner at the Chevalier de la Luzerne's, he says : 

"The dinner was served in the American, or if you will, in the English fashion ; consisting of two courses, one 
comprehending the entrdes, the roast meat, and the warm side dishes; the other, the sweet pastry and confectionery. 
When this is removed, the cloth is taken off, and apples, nuts, and chestnuts are served : it Is then that healths are 
dranlv ; the coffee which comes afterwards serves as a signal to rise from table. These healths, or toasts, as I have 
already observed, have no inconvenience, and only serve to prolong the conversation, which is always more animated 
at the end of the repast; they oblige you to commit no excess, wherein they greatly differ from the German healths, 
and from those we still give in our garrisons and provinces. But I find it an absurd and truly barbarous practice, the 
first time you drink, and at the beginning of dinner, to call out successively to each individual, to let him know you 
ddnk his health. The actor in this ridiculous comedy is sometimes ready to die with thirst, whilst he is obliged to 
inquire the names, or catch the eyes of five and twenty or thirty persons, and the unhappy persons to whom he ad- 
dresses liimself, with impatience, for it is certainly not possible for them to bestow a very great attention to what they 
are eating, and what is said to them, being incessantly called to on the right and left, or pulled by the sleeve by chari- 
table neighbors, who are so kind as to acquaint them with the politeness they are receiving. The most civil of the 
Americans are not content with this general call ; every time they drink they make ])artia! ones, for example, four or 
five persons at a time. Another custom completes the despair of poor foreigners, if they be ever so little absent, or 
have good appetites: these general and partial attacks terminate in downiight duels. They call to you from one end 
of the table to the other: Sir, will you permit me to drink a glass of uine Kith you? This proposal always is ac- 
cepted, and does not admit the excuse of the Great-Cousin, one does not drink tvithout being acquainted. The 
bottle is then passed to you, and you must look your enemy in the face, for I can give no other name to the man who 
exercises such an empire over my will: you wait till he likewise has poured out his wine, and taken his glass; you 
then drink mournfully with him, as a recruit imitates the corporal in his exercise. But to do justice to the Ameri 
cans, they tliemselves feel the ridicule of these customs borrowed from old England, and since l;ud aside by her. 
They proposed to the Chevalier de la Luzerne to dispense with them, knowing that his example would have great 
weight; but he thought proper to conform, and he did right Tlie more the French are known to be in possession of 
giving their customs to other nations, the more should they avoid the appearance of changing those of the Americans. 
Happy our nation if her ambassadors and her travellers had always so correct an understanding, and if they never 
lost sight of this observation, that of all men, the dancing-master should have the most negligent airl " 

Of dauciDg and music : 

" Dancing is said to be at once the emblem of gayety and of love ; here it seems to be the emblem of legislation, and 
of marriage ; of legislation, inasmuch as places are marked out, the country dances named, and every proceeding pro- 
vided for, calculated, and submitted to regulation ; of marriage, as it furnishes each lady with a partner, with wlmm 
she dances the whole evening, without being allowed to take another. It is true that every severe law requires miti- 
gation, and that it often happens, that a young lady after dancing the two or three first dances with her partner, may 
make a fresh choice, or accept of the invitation she has received ; but still the comparison holds good, for it is a mar- 
riage in the European fashion. Strangers have generally the privilege of being complimented with the handsomest 
women. The Comte de Dumas liad Mrs. Bingham for his partner, and the Vicomte de Noailles, Miss Shippen Both 
of them, like true philosophers, testified a great respect for the manners of the country, by not quitting their hand- 
some partners the whole evening; in other respects they were the admiration of all the assembly, from the grace and 
nobleness with which they danced; I may even assert, to the honor of my country, that they surpassed a Cliief Jus- 
tice of Carolina (Mr. Pendleton) and two members of Congress, one of whom (Mr. Duane) passed however for being 
by ten per cent, more lively than all the other dancers. Tlie ball was suspended, towards midnight, by a supper, 
served in the manner of coffee, on several different tables. On passing into the dining room, the Chevalier de la Lu- 
zerne presented his hand to Mrs. Morris, and gave her the precedence, an honor pretty generally bestowed on her, as 
she is the richest woman in the city, and all ranks here being equal, men follow ttieir natural bent, by giving the 
preference to riches. . . . "When music and the fine arts come to prosper at Philadelphia; when society once becomes 
easy and gay there, and thcylearn to accept of pleasure when it presents itself, without a formal invitation, then may 
foreigners enjoy all the advantages peculiar to their manners and government, without envying any thing in Europe." 

Of elegance in dress, and its influences : 

" "What I am about to .=ay should only be whispered in your ear. I am going to handle a delicate subject . I am ven- 
turing to touch the ark. But be assured, that during a three years residence in America, the progress of the women's 
dress has not escaped me. If I have enjoyed this as a feeling man, if the results of this progress have not been viewed 
by mo with an indifferent eye, my time of life and character are a pledge to you that I have observed them as a phi- 
losopher Well, it is in this capacity I undertake their defence, but so long only as things are not carrie<l to an excess. 
Tlie virtue of the women, which is more prod»ctive of happiness, even for the men, than all the enjoyments of vice, 
if there be any real pleasures arising from that source ; the virtue of the women, I say, has two bucklers of defence ; 
one is rciirement, and distance from all danger; this is the hidden treasure mentioned by Eocliefoucauld, which is un- 
touched because it is undiscovered. The other is loftiness, a sentiment always noble in its relation to ourselves. Let 
them learn to appreciate themselves; lot them rise in their own estimation, and rely on that estimable pride for the 
oreservation of their virtue as well as of their fame. They who love only pleasure, corrupt the sex, whom they con- 
Jert only into an instrument of their voluptuousness ; they who love women, render them better by rendering them 



APPENDIX. 435 

more amiable. But, you %vill say, is it by dress, and by exterior cliarms, that they must establish their empire f Tea, 
Bir, every woman ought to seek to please; this is the weapon conferred on her by Nature to compensate the weakness 
of her sex. Without this she is a slave, and can a slave have virtues? Eemeniber the word decus, of which we have 
formed decency ; its original import is ornament. A lilthy and negligent woman is not decent, she cannot inspire 
respect. 1 have already allowed myself to exprcs.', my opinion by my \Aishes ; I desire, then, that all the American 
•women may be well dressed ; but I have no objection to seeing that dress simple. They are not formed to represent 
the severity of the legislation; neither ought they to contrast with it. and convey a tacit insult on that severity. Gold, 
silver, and diamonds, then, should be banished from American dress; what excuse cm there be for a luxury whicli is 
not becoming? But this indulgence, which I have expressed for the toilet of the women, I am far from allowing to 
the men. I am not afraid to say, that I should have a very bad opinion of them, if in a country where there are nei- 
ther etiquette nor titles, nor particular distinctions, they should ever give in to the luxury of dress ; a luxury, which 
even the French have laid a*ide, except on marriages and entertainments, and which no longer exists any where but 
in Germany and Italy, where eertainly you will not go in search of models." 

Philip Mazzei is now little known in this country except as one of the confidential correspond- 
ents of Mr. Jefferson, lie was born in Tuscany in 1730, and, after a career of various adven- 
ture, came to America in 17*73, with a small party of his countrymen, for the purpose of introducing 
into Virginia the culture of the grape, the olive, and other fruits of Italy. In the revolution he 
took an active part in support of our independence. In 1783 he returned to Europe; in 1785 
he came a second time to America, and in 1788 he wrote iu Paris his Recherches Historiques et 
Politiques sur les Etats-Uyiis de I'Amcrique Septentrionale, in four volumes. This work has never 
been translated. lie was subsequently privy councillor of the king of Poland, <fec., and died in 
1816. In his Recherches he presents some curious details of manners in Virginia, and, replying 
to certain passages by the Marquis de Chastellux, says: 

" The Marquis de Chastellux states that ' the wealthiest people give but a very moderate dower to their daugh- 
ters; and that, in consequence, depending on her personal attractions to win a husband, a girl is often a coquette and 
intriguer, and a married woman sad and mojjing.' It is true, as the marquis says, that dowers in America are quite 
moderate. Ilis mistake is in the consequences which he deduces from this fact In America, as indeed in every other 
naiion, the usages of society are peculiar to the country; thus, among our own people, young men and women may 
meet at any hour of the day: hence they have little opportunity to assume and sustain a disguise; in other countries, 
where they pass out little time together, each one takes care to display his good qualities and to conceal his bad ones; 
here, their object is to become acquainted with each other's character; they marry only when they are mutually 
suited, and are rarelj' doomed to disappointment in the sequel, there having been no efibrt on the part of either to 
deceive. Yon never hear it remarked that such a man is attracted to a young woman merely because sho is beauti- 
ful, and it is not rare that a girl refuses a young man whose fine person and large estate are his only recommendations. 
Coquetry, properly speaking, is not known here; the slightest practice of it would tarnish a young woman's reputa- 
tion; yet it is not surprising that our traveller has been deceived on this subject Any European visiting this coun- 
try, without the means of forming an intimate acqurdntance with the people in their own homes, would be liable to 
fall into a similar error — the first impressions which a stranger receives abroad are so greatly modilied by his recollec- 
tion of the peculiar habits of his own nation. In Am rica it would be deemed a great indelicacy in a woman to 
show her legs two or three inches above her 'ankles. This wonli^ appear like afl'ectation in many parts of Europe ■ 
in some of tlie Greek islands it would be ridiculous in a woman to have her skirts extend below her knees. In Eng- 
land, even among the better class, one is not shocked t see a person cut his finger nails in company; any where else 
Buch a liberty would be thought extremely indecorous. Among certain European communities a young woman ia 
obliged to be very reserved with the men, especially with young men. Once married she is no longer under the 
slightest restraint In America, on the contrary, young women are affable with young men, and married women are 
reserved, and their husbands are not as famili.ar with the girls as they were when bachelors. If a young man were 
to take it into his he.ad that his betrothed should not be free and gay in her social intercourse, he would run the risk 
of being discarded, incur the reputation.of jealousy, and would find it very difflcult to get married. Tet if a single 
woman were to play the coquette she would be regarded with contempt. As this innocent freedom between the 
sexes diminishes in proportion as society loses its purity and simplicity of manners, as is the case in cities, I desire 
sincerely that our good Virginia ladies may long retain their liberty entire. 

" In regard to married women, their household duties prevent thein from spending much of their time In general 
society, but their reserve has in it notliing of sadness, although a stranger might judge differently, especially if he 
came from a country where women have their own way. Our women are free and affable in proportion to the ac- 
quaintance which they have with the persons with whom they converse. 

"Young women, whose position in life relieves them from any domestic duties, often get up parties of pleasure 
to ride on horseback, from one house to another, through woods and over rivers, stopping at different places to take 
rest as they require it, and have a dance as often as they can. They go on, increasing their party by taking with them 
girls from the diti'erent houses which they visit Tliese excursions often extend to a hundred leagues or more, and 
last several months. The managers endeavor to have as many young men with them as possible, and the callant who 
cannot himself be of the party imagines that his lady-love should give it up at once. Jealousy is reg.arded as a des- 
picable vice, and no one exhibits it unless he has the best grounds for it In those things which depend entirely on 
3U6tom, no nation has a right to criticise another. 



436 APPENDIX. 

It is not my pnrp^ s? to analyee the 'Travels of the Marquis de Chastel^ux,' but simply to rectify some Inaccu 
racies which tend to give an erroneous id. a, not only of the morals, but also of the manners, of the people of thil 
country. I shall close with a single obs rvation on what this author has said on the subject of precedence. In de- 
scribing a ball at Philadelphia, he says, 'Th) Chevalier de la Luzerne gave his arm to Madam Morris, to lead her iirst 
into the supper-room — she being the richent woman in the city; for here, w-here there is no distinction in rank, pre- 
cedence is generally given to wi alth.' Now, precedince for men is regulated by the place which they occupy in the 
state; in public, it is decided by lavv; in private, by custom. "Women share the distinction of their husbands. An 
American in reading this acciunt by the marquis would not be deceived; from the precedence yielded to Mrs. Morris 
he would understand that the wife of the President of Congress was not at the fete, nor yet the wife of the President 
of Pennsylvania, nor the wife of the Speaker of the General Assembly." 

The Abbe Robin, whose description of "Washington is quoted in a preceding page, gives us in 

his Nouveau Voyage dans VAmerique, the following views of society : 

" Piety is not the only motive which induces American women to be constant in their attendance at church. Hav- 
ing no places of public amusement, no fashionable promenades, they go to church to display their fine dress. They 
often appear there clothed in silks, and sometimes covered with sup?rb ornaments. They wear their hair dressed very 
high on the crown of the head, in imitation of the fashion which prevailed among our French women some years 
since, or something after the style of the French women of the olden time. Instead of powder they use a kind of 
eau, de savon, to make the hair glossy. This is frequently not unbecoming, the hair being of a very pretty blonde. 
The most recherchees however are beginning to adopt European fashions. They are tall and well proportioned ; their 
features are generally regular; their complexion is very fair and without color; they have less e.-ise and grace, but 
a more noble bearing than French ladies; indeed, I have noticed in many of them, something of the loftiness which 
characterizes some of the chef-d'oeuvres of the old artists. The men arc proportionably large, finely formed, and little 
inclined to embonpoint. Their complexion is slightly pale. They are less fashionable in their dress than the women, 
yet they are very neat At twenty years of age the women have no longer the freshness of youth. At thirty-five or 
forty they are wrinkled and decrepit. The men are almost as premature. Hence I have presumed that the average 
length of life must be less in this country than it is in Europe. With a view to ascertain if this supposition be correct, 
I have visited all the church-yards of Boston, where it is customary to inscribe on the head-stone of each grave the 
name and age of the deceased. I have found that the majority of those who arrived at manhood died under the age 
of fifty. I have seen very few of sixty, scarcely any of seventy, and I have not met one beyond seventy. 

" As we advance towards the south, we find a very sensible difference in the manners and customs of the people. 
In Connecticut the houses are placed on the public roads, at small intervals, and barely large enough to accommodate 
a single family, and are furnished in the most plain and simple manner; but here are spacious, isolated habitations, 
consisting of several edifices, built in the centre of a plantation, and so remote from the public road as to be lost to 
the view of travellers. These plantations are cultivated by negroes. . .. The furniture of the houses here, is of the 
most costly wood, and the rarest marble, enriched and decorated by artists; they have light and elfgant carriages, 
which are drawn by fine horses ; the coachmen are slaves, and are richly dressed. There appears to be more wealth 
and luxury in Annapolis than in any other city wliich I have visited in this country. Tlie extravagance of the women 
here surpasses that of our own provinces; a French hair-dresser is a man of great importance; one lady here pays to 
her coiffeur a salary of a thousand crowns. This little city, which is at tho mouth of the Severn river, contains sev- 
eral handsome edifices. Tlie state-house is the finest in the country; its front is ornamented with columns, and the 
building surmounted by a dome. There is also a theatre here. Annapolis is a place of considerable shipping. The 
climate is the most delightful in the world. 

The Duke de la Rochefoucauld Lianc()urt, in the eighth volume of his Voyage dans les Etais 

Unis, presents a summary of his views of the social life of the Americans, as follows: 

" If I have been severely exact in representing an excessive avidity of becoming rich, as the common characteiistlo 
of the American people, and especially in the inhabitants of cities, I sliall be as exactly just in adding that ihis dispo- 
sition does not liurry them on to avarice. Without being profuse, or forgetting the interest of their families, they know 
how to be at proper times expensive, even with ostentation, and they do not refuse to assist the unfortunate, when 
proper opportunities for it occur. . . . Without becoming an extravagant enthusiast of the Quakers, it is impossible not 
to remark, that in every place where any beneficent plan is formed for the good of humanity, there they are always 
ready visitors. They are, perhaps, as is said of them, as much engaged in the occupation of amassing riches, as those ' 
who do not belong to their society; but granting it to be so, this does not prevent them from applying themselves, 
upon every occasion, to acts of kindness and beneficence. Their tenets, their principles, and their laws, rigorously 
prescribe tliis duty; and their constant inspection over their societies inures them to it 

"Though there be no distinctions acknowledged by the law in the United States, fortune and the nature of profes- 
sions form different cl.isses. The merchants, the lawyers, the land-owners, who do not cultivate their land themselves 
(and the number, which is small from the state of Delaware to the north, is great in the states of the south), the phy- 
sicians, and the clergy, form tlie first class. The inferior merchants, the farmers, and the artisans, may be included in 
the second ; and tlie third class is composed of workmen, who let themselves by the day, by the month, &c. In balls, 
concerts, and public amusements, these classes do not mix; and yet except tho laborer in ports, and the common 
sailor, every one calls himself, and is called by others, a gentleman; a small fortune is sufficient for the assumption oi 
this title, as it carries men from one class to another. They deceive themselves very much who think th.it pure re- 
publican manners prevail in America. The white American, by a pride which cannot be blamed, and which pro- 
ceeds from the negroes being generally employed iu the service, is ashamed of the situation of a domestic; so that 
there cannot bo roclcoued throughout the whole extent of the United States, twenty native Americans in the state oj 



APPENDIX. 437 

d'>nie8ttc servants. The class of domestics in America is composed of poor priests, Germans, and of negroes and mu- 
lattoes; and as soon as the first have acquired a little money, they quit that station, regarded with a sort of contempt, 
and establish themselves upon land, which they clear and till, or in a small trade. In short, they become independent 
tt a master. The prejudice which causes the men in America to have so great a repugnance to the state of domestic 
servitude, does not influence the women in the same degree; nothing is more common than to see young women of 
eood families, in the situation of servants, during the tirst years of their youth. Even their parents engage them in 
this situation without shocking any ideas. I have been told by M. de Faubonne, a Frenchman, formerly a captain in 
Jie regiment of Auvergne (and whom the pride of independence induced to take up the business of a gardener for the 
support of his family, though he was forty-sis years of age), that he had had in his service, as maid-servant, the niece 
>f the mayor of the city of New York, a young woman very honest, and well brought up. Similar examples are very 
common. 

" In a country which has belonged to England for a long time, of which the most numerous and nearest connections 
are yet with England, and which carries on with England almost all its commerce, the manners of the people must 
necessarily resemble, in a great degree, those of England. To the American manners particularly, those relative to 
living are the same as in the provinces of England. As to the dress, the English fashions are as faithfully copied, as 
the sending of merchandise from England, and the tradition of tailors and mantuamakers will admit of. The distri- 
bution of the apartments in their hotises is like that of England, the furniture is English, the town carriages are either 
!§nglii!h, or in the English taste; and it is no small merit among the fashionable world to havfl a coach newly arrived 
from London, and of the newest fashiom The cookery is English, and, as in England, after dinner, which is not very 
long, the ladies withdraw, and give place to drinking of wine in full bumpers, the most prominent pleasure of the day, 
and which it is, consequently, very natural to prolong as late as possible. There are great dinners, numerous tea par- 
ties, invited a long time in advance, but no societies. So that these tea assemblies are every where a fund of amuse- 
ment for the ladies. Balls and plays are much frequented. It is generally understood that these kinds of dissipation 
belong only to the towns, and particularly to large cities. Luxury is very high there, especially at New York and 
Philadelphia, and makes a dangerous progress every year; but easily to be conceived, since luxtiry is, in some degree, 
the representation of riches, and that wealth there is the only distinction. There are some persons who surpass theii 
neighbors, already too far advanced, in luxury ; these injure the manners of the country, but while the people censure, 
they pursue these seductive paths; and frequent and sumptuous dinners are held in as high consideration in the new 
as in the old world ; and this custom has its advantages very often. It has been seen that this consideration has raised 
to the place of temporary President of the Senate of the United States, a man who was not esteemed by any of those 
who elected him, or by any other, either for his talents, his qualities, or fiir his character, but he entertained his friends 
with sumptuous dinners. lu the other towns, and especially in the country, luxury is less prevalent, but it continu- 
ally increases, and often out of proportion with wealth. 

"The women every where possess, in the highest degree, the domestic virtues, and all others; they have more 
sweetness, more goodness, at least as much courage, but more sensibility, than the men. Good wives, and good 
mothers, their husbands and their children engage their whole attention ; and their household affairs occupy all their 
time and all their cares ; destined by the manners of their country to this domestic life, their education in other re- 
spects is too much neglected. They are amiable by their qualities and their natural disposition, but there are very few 
among them who are so from any acquired accomplishments. What they esteem to be virtue in wives is the virtue 
of the whole sex ; and if in the United States malice may throw out her suspicion upon twenty, there are certainly 
not above ten of them who can be accused justly, and all the rest treat these with great rigor. 

" The young women here enjoy a liberty, which to French manners would appear disorderly; they go out alone, 
walk with young men, and depart with them from the rest of the company in large assemblies; in short, they enjoy 
the same degree of liberty which married women do in France, and which married women here do not take. But 
they are far from abusing it; they endeavor to please, they desire to obtain husbands, and they know that they shall 
not succeed if their conduct becomes suspected. Sometimes they are abused by the men, who deceive them but 
then they add not to the misfortune of having engaged their hearts to a cruel man the regret of deserving it, which 
might give them remorse. When they have obtained a husband, they love him, because he is their husband, and 
because they have not an idea that they can do otherwise; they revere custom by a kind of state religion, which 
never varies. 

"The Americans marry young, especially in the country : the occasion which the young men, who generally estab- 
lish themselves very early either in some new lands or in some trade, have for a wife to assist them in their labors, 
conduces to these early marriages as much as the purity of manners. In the villages, marriages are less frequent and 
not so hasty, especially since the introduction of luxury renders an acquired fortune more necessary ; and the young 
men hardly feel the necessity of loving, with the project of marriage, till they have already satisfied, or are in the way 
of satisfying, the more imperious necessity of gaining money. But however good the marriages may be, the wife 
who dies is readily replaced by another. In the country she is, as in Europe, a necessary friend to the manao-ement 
of domestic affairs — she is the soul of the family. In town she is so too. She is an indispensable resource for do- 
mestic affairs, while her husband is engaged in his own affairs, as every one is in America; she is an assiduous com- 
panion, and a society ever ready to be found in a country where there are no other but that of the family, and where 
the children soon quit their paternal abode. 

"An European coming into the new world, and bringing with him the need of the usage of the politer attentions 
of that which he has quitted; he, above all, who brings with him the need of what we call in France the charms of 
society, which we know so well how to appreciate, of which we know how to participate, and which affords us so 
many moments of happiness, — such a man will not find himself satisfied in America, and his recollections will be 
continually sprinkling his life with melani holy. He cannot, if his heart has an occasion for a friend, hope to find 
there the sweetness of a constant and avowed friendship. The inhabitants of the United States have been hitherto 
too much engaged in their respective occupations for the enticements of polished society, to be able to withdraw their 
ftttention from them ; they have not leisure to consecrate to friendship. 



438 APPENDIX. 

"Such an European ought to have for a long time forgotten Europe, in order to live quite happy in America. 
Dut if he can readily lose the remembrance of it, or take with him there the dearest objects of his affection, lie will 
lead in America a happy and tranquil life. lie will there enjoy the blessing of liberty in the greatest extent which it 
is possible to desir« in any polished country. Ho will see himself with an active people, easy in their circumstances, 
and happy. Every day will bring him to observe a new progress of this new country. He will sec it every day take 
a stej) towards that strength and greatness to which it is called; towards that real independence which is fi)r a nation 
the result of having the means of satisfying itself." 

Talleyrand's descriptions of the American Woodcutter and Fisherman are often quoted in the 
original, as examples of the extraordinary mastery possessed by that celebrated wit and states- 
man over the resources of his native tongue. Lord Brougham remarks that " writers of a less 
severe school might envy their poetical effect, and learn from them, perhaps, how possible it is to 
be pointed and epigrammatic without being affected, and sentimental without being mawkish;" 
and one of our own critics has characterized these celebrated portraits as, " in the language of 
amateurs, rich and sparkling — pure, brilliant, exquisite cabinet gems — but wholly works of 
fancy." Tliey are from Talleyrand's Memoir concerning the Commercial Relations of the United 
States with Great Britain: 

" In many districts, the sea and woods have formed fishermen and woodcutters. Now such men, properly speak- 
ing, have no country ; and their sncial morality is reduced within a very small compa.ss. It has long ago been said, 
that man is the disciple of that which surrounds him; and it is true. Hence, he whose bounds are circumscribed by 
notliing but deserts, cannot receive le<sons with regard to the social comforts of life. The idea of the need wliich men 
have one of another, does not exist in him ; and it is merely by decomposing the trade which he exercises, that one 
can find out the principles of his affections, and the sum of his moralit}'. 

'■ The American woodcutter docs not interest himself in any thing ; every sensible idea is remote from him. Thoso 
branches so agreeably disposed by nature ; the beautiful foliage ; the bright color which enlivens one part of the wood ; 
the darker green which gives a melancholy shade to another; these things are nothing to him ; he pays them no atten- 
tion ; the number of strokes of his axe requii^d to fell a tree fills all his thoughts. He never planted ; he knows not 
the pleasure of it. A tree of his own planting would be good for nothing in his estimation ; for it would never, during 
his life, be large enough to fell. It is by dcstraction that he lives; he is a destroyer wherever he goes. Tlius every 
filace is equally good in his eyes ; he has no attachment to the spot on which he has spent his labor; for his labor is 
ou]y fatigue, and is unconnected with any idea of pleasure. In the effects of his toil he has not witnessed those grailu- 
al increases of growth, so captivating to the planter; ho reg.irds not the destination of his productions ; he knows not 
tlis charms of new attempts ; and if, in quitting the abode of many years, he does not by chance forget his axe, he 
leaves no regret behind him. 

" The vocation of an American fisherman begets an apathy, almost equal to that of the woodcutter. His affections, 
his interests, his life, are on the side of that society to which it is thouglit that he belongs. But it would be a preju- 
dice to suppose that he is a very useful member of it. For we must not compare these fishermen to those of l>;urope, 
and think that the fisheries here, are, like them, a nursery for seamen. In America, with the exception of the inhabi- 
tants of Nantucket, who fish for whales, fishing is an idle employment. Two leagues from the coast, when they have 
no dread of foul weather, a single mile when the weather is uncertain, is the sum of the courage which they disjilay ; and 
the line is the only instrument with whose use they arc particularly acquainted. Thus their knowledge is but a trifling 
trick; and their action, which consists in const intly hanging one arm over the side of the boat, is little short of idlo- 
nes.s. They are attached to no place ; their oniy connection with the land is by means of a wretched house which they 
inhabit. It is the sea that affords them nourishment; hence a few codfish, more or less, determine their country. If 
the number of these seems to dimini-h in any particular quarter, they emigrate in search of another country, where 
they are more abundant. "When it was remarked by sume political writers, that fishing was a sort of agriculture, the 
remark was brilliant but not solid. All the qualities, all the virtues, which are attached to agriculture, are wanting ia 
the man who lives by fishing. Agriculture produces a patriot in the truest accei)tation of the word; fishing alone can 
succeed in forming a cosmopolite." 

The Chevalier Felix de Beaujour was Consul General here, and may have suffered in some 
commercial transactions with Americans. He says : 

"Although honesty is not the favorite virtue of the American merchants, it is not, as is usually believed in Europe, 
eintirely banished from among thetn; and wo still find, even amidst the corruption of their maritime cities, some per- 
sons of great uprightness and rigid probity. In the country, and among tlie villagers embosomed in the woods, con- 
siderable candor and good faith is to be met wi'.h, and, in general, good and upright characters are hardly less frequent 
in the United States, than in other countries; but high spirited and lofty souls, generous and magnanimous hearts, in 
a word, great and noble characters are there infinitely rarer than in other parts, and particularly than in the South of 
Europe, where they shine amidst the universal depravity that surrounds them, like stars in the obscurity of night If, 
however, the xVmericans have none or but few of those eminent qualities which ennoble human nature and cause it to 
be admired, they have others which, although more modest, are not less estimable, and which still contribute more to 
the happiness of lite ; such as the love of freedom, of industry, of order, and of cleanliness. The American peopl« 
tincerely love liberty, and they deserve to enjoy it, by their regard and respect for the la\s'B. The least arbitrary act, 



APPENDIX. 439 

In tliat country, -n-onld revolt the most dependent man; but he obeys the meanest bailiff who speaks in the name of 
the law, and ho would deliver up a friend, a brother, who should seek to elude it. Very few Americans arc seen be"^ 
ping, and every one who is capable of working for his livelihood would bo ashamed to live at the expense of another. 
The people of the United States are naturally orderly : and when one enters into a house, even of the lower classes 
the eye Is a^Teeably pleased with the regularity and neatness that reigns throughout ; but what most gratifies a for- 
nsner who arrives In the United States, is that external cleanliness so remarkable every where, in the streets, in the 
houses, as well as in the dress. Every body Is tliere decently clad; the men with cloth coats, the women with linen 
gowns, generiilly white; all in a neat and clean manner, and nobody ever appears in public with those offensive rags 
which in other countries shock the eye. The houses, built of bricks or wood, are always freshly, and often !.greeably 
painted; and though they are neither furnished nor decorated with luxury no requisite is wanting, and every thing is 
kept tidy and clean. On entering them, it is impossible not to admire the polish of the furniture, and even the ex- 
treme cleanliness of the floors. The greatest part of the streets are ornamented with foot-ways for the convenience ot 
passengers, and they are all carefully swept and watered in the hot season. In short, this taste for cleanliness, so gen- 
eral in the Americans, is even remiirkable in the places where they bury their dead. In no country are buryiirg- 
grounds so neat and ornamental to be met with ; the rich raise over their friends tombs of white marble, tlie middle 
classes upright stones, and the poorest construct hillocks, which they cover with green turf. American cleanliness 
must certainly have in it something attractive, since it engages every traveller ; not one on returning to his own coun- 
try fails to wish he could there find that air of ease and cleanliness which had been so agreeable to his eye during his 
residence in tlie United States. 

"This systematic taste for cleanliness, in that country, as well as every where else, is accompanied by the most 
happy effects; it is serviceable to health, diminishes the cause of sickness, favors the love of order and economy, and 
diffuses among every class of the community, a sentiment of dignity which becomes blended with all the ideas of 
propriety and decency. It even appears, that it favors, as much as food and climate, the display of the human form. 
And thus, indeed, have the Americans nearly all a high stature, a good shape, a strong and M'ell proportioned frame a 
fresh and ruddy complexion ; but, in general, they have little delicacy in their features, and little expression in their 
physiognomy. Though few ugly men are to bo found among them, still fewer really handsome ones are to bo seen, I 
mean of that towering and manly beauty sometimes remarked in the South of Europe, and which served as a model 
to the finest statues of the ancients. They are, for the greatest part, of those tall forms, ruddy and soft,- such as Taci- 
tus describes the Germans, who frequently concealed under them no other than an obtuse mind and soul devoid of en- 
ergy. It is, perhaps, to this vice in their phy:^ical constitution, more than to their geographical position, that the eter- 
nal irresolution of their government is owing; but it is to bo presumed, that their temperament will improve with 
their climate, and that the Americans will some day or other acquire more vivacity of mind and more vi^or in their 
character, 'i he women have more of that delicate beauty which belongs to their sex, and, in general, have finer fea- 
tures, and more expression in their physiognomy. Their stature is usually tall, and nearly all are possessed of a light 
and airy shape ; the breast high, a fine head, and their color of a dazzling whiteness. Let us imagine, under this bril- 
liant form, the most modest demeanor, a chaste and virgin.al air, accomp.anied by those simple and unatTocted graces 
which flow from artless nature, and we may have an idea of their style of beauty; but this beauty passes, and fades in 
a moment. At the age of twenty-five their form changes, and at thirty, the whole of their charms have disappeared. 
As long as they are unmarried tliey enjoy the greatest liberty, but as soon as they have entered the conjugal state 
they burj' themselves in the bosom of their families, and appear no longer to live, but for their husbands. If how- 
ever, they thus contribute less to the pleasures of society, they nevertheless increase those of wedlock which makes 
the Amcricar. wives both thrifty and faithful, divested of the vices of their husbands, and possessing' all their virtues. 
"With this species of existence are the people of the United States destined tobemorchappy than those of Europe? 
This is not e.asy to decide, because this question, which is very simple under one head, becomes complicated under an 
infinite number of others. In the first place, the Americans in domestic lifo have more means of happiness- but in 
social life have less ; and if they almost live without pain, they also nearly live without pleasure. They do not know 
the art of multiplying or varying their enjoyments, and the monotony of their existence resembles the silence of tb« 
tombs. 

" In Europe the equality that reigns between the inhabitants of the United States has been greatly blazoned forth • 
but this equality is less real th.an apparent, because the manners have there established in society distinctions more 
pointed than any where else ; distinctions rendered the more odious from being founded on riches, without any regard 
to talents or even to public functions. There the rich blockhead is more considered than the first magisti'ate and the 
infiuence of gold is there counterbalanced by no illusion or reality. In that country there exists no other than an ex- 
treme liberty or extreme dependence ; every one is there either master or servant, and scarcely any of those inter- 
mediate classes are to he found, which, by their services, bind all the members of a great community to each other." 

M. VoLXEY abstains from any general commentary on American manners, but bas some sbarp 

observations on our dietetics, ^vbieb be tbinks demand tbe interference of tbe government: 

"It Is an important duty of the government to enlighten their people as to the consequences of that pemicions 
diet, which they have borrowed from their ancestors, the Germans and English. "We may venture to affirm that if a 
premium were offered for a regimen most destructive to the teeth, the stomach, and the health in general, none could 
be devised more efficacious for these ends than that in use among this people. At breakfast they deluge the stomach 
with a pint of hot water, slightly impregnated with tea, or slightly tinctured, or rather colored, with coffee ; and thev 
swallow, almost without mastication, hot bread, half baked, soaked in melted butter, with the grossest cheese, and sal't 
or hung beef, pickled pork or fi^h, all which can with difficulty be dissolved. At dinner they devour boiled pastes 
called, absurdly, puddings, garnished with the most luscious sauces. Their turnips and other vegetables are floated lu 
lard or butter. Their pastry is nothing but a greasy paste, imperfectly baked To digest these various substances. 
they take tea, immediately after dinner, so strong that it is bitter to the taste, as well as utterly destructive of the 



440 APPENDIX. 

nervous system. Supper presently follows, with salt meat and shell fish in its train. Thus passes the ■whole day, Id 
heaping one indigestive mass upon another. To brace the exhausted stomach, wine, rum, gin, malt spirits, or beer, 
are used with dreadful prodigality. 

"Those modes of diet are not unsuitable to the Tartarian tribes, from whom the people of the west of Europe were 
originally descended, yet they employ none of these pernicious stimulants. Their wandering and equestrian life 
makes them capable of digesting any thing; but when nations change their climate, or sink into the wealth, refine- 
ment, and ease of a stationary people, the whole mass undergoes m.iterial alterations. The ploughmt n of Germany 
or England may copy their hardy ancestors without much inconvenience; but not so those that dwell in cities, and 
pass their time in a slothful or sedentary manner, and still less those who change the chills and damps of their native 
climate for a torrid region like Georgia or the Carolinas. Habit itself, though almost omnipotent, cannot reconcile this 
system to so repugnant a climate. Ilence it is, that the English are the least able to contend with the evils of tropical 
climates, of any people of Europe, and their American descendants must abjure the example, or ttey will incur the 
same inconveniences. Eegimen lias so much influence on health, and is of such moment in the yellow fever, that 
this malady never appeared within the precincts of the Philadelphia prison, a circumstance no doubt owing to the rigid 
temperance observed in this institution, by which the stomach is never overloaded, nor the fluids depraved, and to the 
exclusion of spirituous liquors, for drunkenness is a vice as prevalent in the United States as among the savages 
themselves. 

*'I am far from imagining that the manners of a nation, in these respects, can be easily or speedily changed. I 
know too well the infatuation of mankind, and the obstinacy of general and long-established habits ; but I cannot help 
thinking, that if half the pains were taken by governments to enlighten their subjects as are taken to mislead them, a 
reformation might be wrought, such as the contemners of mankind have no conception of at present" 

SOCIAL LIFE IX VIRGINIA AFTER THE REVOLUTION. 

The Duke de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, from whose Voyage dans les Etats Unis some 
general observations on the social life of this country during Washington's presidency have already 
been quoted, has the following paragraphs especially referring to manners in Virginia at the 
same period : 

" The Virginians generally enjoy a character for hospitality, which they truly deserve ; they are fond of com- 
pany ; their hospitality is sincere, and may perhaps be the reason of their spending more than they should do ; for 
in general they are not rich, especially in clear income. You find, therefore, very frequently, a table well served, 
and covered with plate, in a room where half the windows have been broken for ten years past, and will probably 
remain so ten years longer. But few houses are in a tolerable state of repair, and no part of their buildings is 
kept better than the stables, because the Virginians are fond of hunting, races, and, in short, of all pleasures and 
amusements that render it necessary to take peculiar care of horses, which are the fashion of the day. 

" The Virginians are good husbands, and good fathers ; but, from a love of dissipation, they keep less at home 
than the inhabitants of other states. I have heard ladies reproach them with being subject to jealousy. This 
may be the case : in every country under the sun, dissipated husbands are jealous. The women are amiable, an<l 
enjoy the reputation of fulfilling their duties with the same exactness as in other parts of America, where the hus- 
bands pass more time with their wires. They are more sprightly and agreeable than in the eastern states, hut 
not so much so as in South Carolina; nor are they so pretty as in Philadelphia. I have, however, seen Virginian 
ladies who are inferior to none in personal charms and graceful manners. 

" In Virginia the lawyers usually insist on payment before they proceed in a suit ; and this custom is justified 
by the general disposition of the inhabitants to pay as little and as seldom as possible. I have heard physicians 
(Jeclare that they do not annually receive one-third of what is due them for professional services; that they have 
some of these debts of five and twenty years' standing; that their claims are frequently denied; and that, in order 
to recover payment, they are obliged to send writs, carry on lawsuits, etc. 

" The derangement of affairs occasioned by expenses exceeding the bounds of income, and especially by gaming — 
and, above all, the want of delicacy, resulting from that derangement, and from the habit of thinking lightly of 
debts — are the causes of this immoral order of things ; and it is in some degree encouraged by the laws of the state, 
which do not allow the seizure of lands or other immovable property for the payment of debts." 

Another observant Frenchman, writing about the same time, presents a very similar descrip- 
tion of the peculiarities of society in Virginia in the earlier years of American independence. 

" The gentleman of fortune," he remarks, "rises about nine o'clock. He perhaps may make an exertion to 
walk as far as his stables to see his horses, which are seldom more than fifty yards from his house. He returns be- 
tween nine and ten to breakfast, which is generally of tea or cotfee, bread and butter, and very thin slices of venison, 
ham or hung beef. He then lies down on a pallet, on the floor, in the coolest room in the house, in his shirt and 
trowsers only, with a negro at his head, and another at his feet, to fan him, and keep off the flies. Between twelve 
and one, he takes a draught of bombo, or toddy, a liquor composed of water, sugar, rum, and nutmeg, which is ■ 
made weak, and kept cool. He dines between two and three, and at every table, whatever else there may be, a 
ham, and greens, of cabbage, are always a standing dish. At dinner, ho drinks cider, toddy, punch, port, claret, 
or Madeira, which is generally excellent here. Having drank some few glasses of wine after dinner, he returns to 
his pallet, with his two blacks to fan him, and continues to drink toddy or sangaree all the afternoon. He does 
not always drink tea. Between nine and ten in the evening, he eats a light supper of milk and fruit, or wino, 
sugar, and fruit, and almost immediately retires to bed, for the night: in which, if it be not furnished with 



APPENDIX. 441 

mosketo curtains, he is generally so molested witli the heat, and harassed and tormented with these pernicious 
insects, that he receives very little refreshment from sleep. This is the general way of living in his family, 
when he has no companj; No doubt, many differ from it — some in one respect, some in another : but more follo\= 
it than do not. 

" The lower and many of the middling classes live very differently. A man of these classes rises In the morning 
about six o'clock. He then drinks a julep, made of rum, water, and sugar, but very strong. Then he walks, or 
more generally rides, round his plantation, views all his stock, and all his crop ; and breakfasts about ten o'clock, 
on cold turkey, cold meat, fried homminy, toast and cider, ham, bread and butter, tea, coffee, or chocolate, which 
last, however, is seldom used by the women. The rest of the day he spends much in the manner above described, 
of a man of the first rank; only cider supplies the place of wine at dinner, and he eats no supper; they never 
even think of It. The women very seldom drink tea in the afternoon ; the men never." 



EDUCATION OF AMERICAN WOMEN DURING WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 

From nothing can the real condition of society be inferred with more certainty than from the 
education of its women. In contemporary memoirs and correspondence we have frequent refer- 
ences to schools for girls in Boston, Newport, New-York, Philadelphia, and other cities, before and 
during the revolution, and to the close of the last century, but by far the most popular as well aa 
the best seminary of this description in America, from the peace to the retirement of the first 
president, appears to have been that of the Moravians, at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania. I have 
quoted* some allusions to it by John Adams, written in 1111. Eighteen years later it was visited 
by a woman of New York, who addressed to a friend the following characteristic and not unpleasing 
account of it : 

A JOUENET TO BETHLEHEM, IN THE SUMMER OF 1795. 

" I think I cannot do better than to present you a little sketch of our Bethlehem tour. We were drawn thither 
by the fame of the seminary, and, high as our expectations were raised, we found them greatly exceeded. Bethle- 
hem is In the state of Pennsylvania, fifty-four miles north of Philadelphia; it is a beautiful village, and without 
the smallest degree of enthusiasm may be pronounced a terrestrial paradise. It is true, we do not wander hero 
through orange and citron groves, but nature has shaped for us the most enchanting walks. Embowerin'' shades 
meadows, hills and dales, every where strike the eye with agreeable variety. Parallel rivers pursue their glassy 
courses, the margins of which are planted with the flourishing and highly perfumed locusts, cedars and chestnuts, and 
with a variety of trees bearing the most delicious fruits. Upon an eminence is Bethlehem ; the cultivated scene is 
displayed before us: a chain of verdant hills encircles it, and this little Eden is in the midst. The town, with a 
very few exceptions, is built of stone, and the dwellings are generally upon a large scale. 

" The house of the brethren, that of the sisterhood, the asylum for widows, and the seminary for young ladies, 
are uncommonly elevated and capacious, and there is an air of dignified simplicity through these several structures. 
The greatest order and unanimity is preserved ; even the water-works are characteristic ; from one spring the in- 
habitants are supplied ; a cistern conveys it to their kitchens ; by the aid of a pump, worked by a water machine, 
the leaden pipes receive it, and the ready spout, at pleasure, discharges in every domicil the purifying stream. , 

" The town was originally planted by Germans ; many natives of Europe now reside here, and they preserve 
their ancient customs with much exactness. A great variety of arts and manufactures are carried to high perfec- 
tion, among which are those of the tanner, clothier, stocking-weaver, tin-worker, blacksmith, gold and silversmith, 
saw and scythe maker, wheelwright, and chaise and harness maker ; grist-mills also, upon the best plan, are found 
here, and a brewery, after the English model ; likewise printing and bookbinding, with all the common crafts. 

" The religion of the people is a system of benevolence ; its foundation is true philanthropy, upon which basis 
rises the superstructure of morality. 

" I admire beyond expression the regularity conspicuous in every department. The virgin choir have all the 
advantages which the cloistered fair one can boast, without her restraints. I enquired of one of the sisters if it 
was in her power to quit her engagements ? ' Our doors, madam,' replied the charming recluse, 'are always open ; 
but once relinquishing this retreat, a second entrance is found very diflicult.' This circle of amiable women dwell 
together in perfect amity ; every one pursues her different vocation, and the profits make a common (a'Li; never 
did I see all kinds of needle-work carried to greater excellence ; every flower, also, which prolific nature produces, 
is imitated so exactly as to render it only not impossible to distinguish the copies from the models ; I never saw 
them surpassed by any imported from Europe ; and with the beauty, richness, and exquisite shading of their em- 
broidery, I was particularly pleased. As we passed through the apartments, the tambour, needle-work, flowers 
&c., were displayed for sale : I regretted that their cost was beyond my reach. Neither is the loom nor the distaff 
neglected — cloths of a superior kind being manufactured here ; and we were shown the art of spinnin"- without 
a wheel. 

" The sisterhood consists, at this present, of about one hundred maidens, who, after a night of such slumbers 

* AjiI«, p. 8. 

50 



442 APPENDIX. 

B3 health and innocence produce, assemble in an elegant apartment, -which is consecrated their chapel. It is proper 
ly fitted up, supplied with an organ and music books, and, in beautiful capitals, the following inscriptions, on eithel 
Bide, meet the eyes : " God hath appointed us to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that 
whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him ; ' ' I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall 
be joyful in my God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of 
righteousness.' Here the choir, at early dawn and at closing eve, together hymn the praises of God, and, pros- 
trating themselves in his presence, the most venerable among them present their petitions and thanksgivings at 
the throne of grace. At one board they are every day seated. Persons selected for the purpose prepare theif 
table. The wash-house, where the apparel of the sisterhood, the tutoresses, and their pupils, is made fit for use 
in the best manner, is at a considerable distance. 

"The establishment of the brethren is of a similar kind, and a like institution for widowed matrons is also 
admirably completed. All that was wrong ia their system they seem to have rectified. The males and females, 
under the chaste auspices of Hymen, may now form for themselves the tender connection ; it is true that, on 
doing so, they must quit their respective retirements, but, choosing a spot in Bethlehem, they may commence 
housekeeping, continuing, if they please, their intercourse with, and attachment to, their former associates. This 
privilege is denied to any but a Moravian ; for though you may sojourn or reside for a time in Bethlehem, yet, if 
of any other persuasion, you cannot become a freeholder there. Thus, married people are not, as heretofore, sep- 
arated ; they live together much in the manner of the rest of the world ; nor are they, as I hinted, now arbitrarily 
united by the whim or caprice of the brethren. 

"Only one inn is allowed in Bethlehem, but this is upon an extensive plan, with every thing in ita 
season, and in fine order ; eighteen double beds are furnished, and the emoluments accruing augment the com- 
mon stock. 

" But it is for its seminary of virtue, and every excellent quality of the heart, and almost every embellish- 
ment of the understanding, that these Elysian Fields will chiefly interest an enlightened and judicious public. 
Place your daughter at Bethlehem, and, for a very moderate consideration, she will be taught a perfect knowledge 
of her mother tongue ; and with the utmost elegance, the French and German languages ; reading, writing, com- 
position and arithmetic, will be given her in as much perfection as she is capable of attaining to ; music, painting, 
and geography, with the rudiments of astronomy, she will acquire, and at the same time the strictest attention to 
her health will be unremittedly paid. It is, however, in your choice to omit for her any of these branches of study. 
An early habit of order and regularity, without which I sincerely believe no one important object was ever yet 
compassed, will also be acquired. The young candidate for excellence is summoned by a bell from her pillow ; at 
a certain hour she must rise, wash, and comb her hair ; next she is to attend prayers ; then comes breakfast ; after 
which, in a regular succession, her several employments. By the way, at morning and evening prayers they play 
on their guitars, which they join with their voices, chanting some divine poem to the praise of the Saviour 
These devotional exercises are performed in the little consecrated chapel, which makes a part of the school build- 
ing, into which no male ever enters. Six o'clock is the hour of rising, and eight of retiring to rest. A lamp con- 
tinues burning through the night, and the girls are often lulled to sleep by the soft sounds of vocal and instruraenta. 
music. The school is divided into a number of apartments ; each apartment, according to its dimensions, contains 
a smaller or larger number of pupils. Every division has its particular intendant or tutoress, and over 
all there is a superior. The lodging-room is in a lofty situation, and accommodated with a ventilator ; the culinary 
apartment is uruler the ground floor, and their diet is wholesome and sufficiently varied. Twice a year the young 
ladies pass public examination, at which the reverend teacher of the Bethlehemito Society presides ; and every 
Sunday collects the whole congregation, men, women and children, in the great or common chapel, which is orna- 
mented with some very affecting Scripture pieces, and has an exceeding fine organ, that is accompanied by ^he 
violin and bass-viol. Singing, you know, constitutes a very large part of the Moravian worship, and their music 
is next to divine. Church service is performed alternately in English and German, and its matter is rational and 
instructive. The maidens are much accustomed to walking, and with delightfully romantic promenades Bethlehem 
abounds ; every fine evening, guarded by one or another of the governesses, without whom they never make an ex- 
cursion, they indulge in this pleasing and salutary exercise. 

" From Elizabethtown, Lancaster and Philadelphia, regular stages to this seminary have lately been estab- 
lished. These bring the children, who have friends in the towns from which the stages are sent out, or in those 
'through which they pass, upon a post evening, in the great roads. Wo were fortunate enough to accompany one 
of these stage carriages to Bethlehem ; a happy concurrence of events brought lis acquainted with its p.assengers, 
who were three ladies coming hither for the purpose of taking home their daughters ; but to their design the 
girls were strangers. Two miles from the town we met the smiling train ; it was indeed the most lovely group my 
eyes ever behell; a very large proportion of the school was drawn out: the hope of bundles, messages, or 
letters from their friends, had winged their feet. The girls whose parents the carriage contained, approached ; for 
a complete year they had not seen them ; they catched a glimpse ; they looked again ; with rapture they clasped 
their hands; 'O my mamma! my mamma!' The starting tears finished their exclamations, and they stood 
wrapped in the charms of innocent, affectionate and joyful surprise ; yet mingled regrets soon b.ilanced the plea- 
sures of the moment, and they could not without emotion behold the near approach of the hour in which they 
must quit a societj"^ where dwells chastised indulgence, serenity, and love. A lady of New York had placed her 
only daughter in this seminary; after a twelvemonth's absence she visited her; stopping at the inn she sent for 
her, but impatient to embrace her, she set out to meet the messenger. The child approached, but the growth she 
had attained, and the ftlteration in her head-dress, prevented the parent from distinguishing her, until the de- 
lighted creature, faking her hand, pressed it with duteous affection to her lips. 

"Coercive measures, are not adopted in the school; hence it is articled, that if a child proves of an uncommonly 
refractory disposition, she shall be returned to her parents. I asked a student if they had any punishments, and 
if so what was their nature, and she informed mc that advice and gentle remonstrances generally answered evorj 



APPENDIX. 443 

purpose; if these were found ineffectual, the name of the incorrigible, with the nature of her offence, was 
recorded ; but in the Bethlehem annals, only one such event had hitherto occurred. 

" Recommended to the superior, and introduced by the before-mentioned ladies, we had an opportunity of 
making many observations. "We passed through the several rooms, and examined the tambour work, embroidery, 
&c., executed by the children. Never did I see any thing in that line equal to it. We attended to their compo- 
sition and painting. Here it would be presumptuous in me to offer criticisms, but I was beyond expi-ession 
charmed. As they played, and sung, in concert, with singular pleasurd wo listened. A number of beautiful 
girls chanted, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men;' 'Now with us our God is seen,' and 'Glory bo to God 
above, who is infinite in love.' Do you not think the tears frushed in the eyes of our M. ? Do you not think that 
my heart swelled with transport ? Every thing was admirable. The exact order and harmony to which the pupils 
are so accustomed, will probably have upon their future lives the finest effect. Not satisfied with designating the 
hours, their clocks, striking even the quarters, regulate, with the utmost precision, their movements. 

" Hitherto I have thought that, had heaven blessed me with a daughter, I never would have resigned her from 
my own maternal watchfulness ; but I now own, that it would be the height of my ambition to place her at the 
age of seven years at Bethlehem, and to keep her there till fourteen. 

" Of this place it is amazing what erroneous conceptions are formed : even at New York I heard gentlemen 
and men of letters exclaim, ' What ! immure your girls within the cloistered walls of Bethlehem ! surely then you 
donot intend them for society?' Tet it is a truth, that there is no undue confinement or restraint here; even 
the sisterhood not seldom making excursions to the adjacent villages. I have heard much of the awkwardness 
and mauvaise honte of those educated at Bethlehem, but could not trace it in a single inst.ance ; and there is in 
their manners an eleg.ant ease and simplicity, which is beyond expression prepossessing : indeed, dwelling thus to- 
gether, they are continually accustomed to society; and, moreover, Bethlehem is the resort of the most cultivated 
strangers. It is true, dancing is not taught here, but, if it is thought proper, this may be easily afterwards ac- 
quired ; and a young lady designed for the great world, may be very soon initiated into this or any ( tlier of its 
customs. Meantime, at Bethlehem she may early lay a good foundation : the chastest system of mor.als, with a 
fund of benevolence, a mind richly stored, and rendered fit to receive every embellishment. 

" With regard to the dress of the school, an exact uniformity is required ; it is a request made of guardians and 
parents that all excess may be avoided, and the sisterhood are fond of seeing their proteges in white ; the cap, how- 
ever, is, if I may be allowed the expression, the insignia of their order ; all the young ladies put it on ; it is made 
of cambric, receives a narrow border of lawn, sets close to the head, and is tied under the chin with a pink ribbon • 
it is of pure white, and though at first sight we are induced to think it could only suit a handsome face, yet how- 
ever they managed it, there was not one of the girls to whom it did not add a charm. The cap of the inhabitants, 
which, for more than a century, the Moravian women haye not changed, sets also close to the head, but is of a dif- 
ferent cut, and is not so becoming ; yet it is worn by every female of every description in Bethlehem : domestics 
maids, wives, and widows — the only distinction being that it is tied with pink or red ribbon by maids, with blue 
by wives, and with white by widows ; and this knot of ribbon is the only ornament worn in the place. I en- 
quired if they did not wear black upon the demise of a friend. 'No,' replied an old lady, who might have p.assed 
for the sister of father Wright, 'we do not mourn for them, we believe they are happy, so do not put on black.' 
In the Moravian manner of interring the dead, as observed in Bethlehem, and the ceremonies attendant, there is 
something to me strikingly pleasing. As soon as the spirit is departed, from whatever choir, or in whatever part 
of the town, the body is clothed in white linen, and, if a female, the cap receives the ribbon which designates the 
order ; the body is then borne to a small stone chapel, consecrated for this purpose, where it is deposited till the 
hour of interment. One of the brethren then mounts the top of the highest edifice, which commands the whole 
village, and proclaims the event by means of a German instrument of music, the name of which I could not learn, 
and he has a method of conveying the intelligence which discloses the sex and connection of the deceased When 
the hour of burial approaches, the brethren, the sisterhood, the children, are, by a number of French horns, sum- 
moned to attend service in the great chapel ; an exhortation is then delivered, and the singing and praying pro- 
duce a solemn and proper effect : the body is next carried from the chapel, and placed upon a stand, on a beauti- 
ful green, the males rauging themselves on one side and the females on the other ; it is covered with a snow-white 
pall, ornamented with red, blue, or white ribbon, according to the character of the departed. Upon the green, a 
divine anthem is performed, when the body is conveyed to the sepulchre, the instruments of music all the time 
playing, and the whole village ranging themseves in decent and beautiful order in the procession. At one of these 
funerals we attended, ana we entered the burial ground with a raised, chastised and solemn kind of satisfaction. 
At the grave some religious exercises were performed which, being in German, we could not understand. After- 
wards vocal and instrumental music, again in soft and solemn strains resounding, were continued during the inter- 
ment, and until the assembly had quitted the graveyard. 

" There is something peculiarly pleasing even in the burial-ground at Bethlehem. It is a spacious, oval plain, 
decently walled in ; it is exactly divided ; on one side are ranged the males, and on the other the females ; upon a 
straight line the graves are laid out, and you can walk between every one with as much ease as you could pursue 
your way along the gravel walks of a parterre. The grave-stone is not raised, as with us, but forms a modest tablet 
which is generally shaded by the verdant grass, and, bearing a concise inscription, we receive the necessary infor- 
mation of the dead. Thus these denizens of tranquillity live, and thus is marked their passage out of time. 

" But, to return from a digression, which I assure myself will not displease, I have farther to say, that I was 
particularly charmed with the governantes of the Bethlehem seminary. There is in their manners a decent pro- 
priety which I have seldom seen equalled ; their very gestures are eminently expressive. Their instructress in 
the French tongue has not a word of English, yet there is a kind of language in her every movement. There is 
something romantic in her history : of an ancient and noble family in France, she made one in the suite of the 
Princess Louisa; her education, of course, was of the highest kind, and, influenced by the example of her 
royal mistress, she took the veil. For twelve years she continued an acquiescing sister ; but, possessing a superior 



444 APPENDIX. 

mind, and being a woman of information, reflection originated doubts. In the cloister she had been Invested 

with some dignities. She questioned those whom she supposed capable of instructing her; but her difficulties, 
during a residence of some added years, increased ; at length, after encountering a series of misfortunes, she es- 
caped, and relinquishing her amily, and her religious name, she took that of a rivulet, over which she passed — 
Fontaine ; and, finding means to transport herself to Holland, the transition to Germany was easy. In Germany, 
embracing the Moravian faith, she heard an account of tho Uethlehem society, obtained strong recommendations 
to tho brethren, and crossing tho Atlantic, was by them received as a valuable acquisition, and is now a principal 
ornament of their school. By such a character, thus qualified, you will conclude that the French language is taught 
in its utmost elegance. I think she has been in Bethlehem two years." 

VI. 

WATERING PLACES IN AMERICA, SEVENTY YEARS AGO. 

Before the revolution the springs of Virginia had every summer been resorted to by a con- 
siderable number of invalids and lovers of pleasure, and, at a later day, Bristol, in Pennsylvania, 
and Lebanon and Saratoga, had acquired not a little popularity by the virtues of their waters ; 
but, upon the whole, no place appears to have been more fashionable as a summer retreat during 
the first administration than Rockaway, on Long Island. A gentleman who resided there in the 
summer of 1789, for the benefit of his health, gives the following sketch of it in Swords's "New 
York Magazine," for 1*790 : 

" Let the valetudinarian from the southern states and the West Indian islands, never fail to visit Rockaway, 
and reside there some weeks during the summer season. The distance from New Tork is little more than twenty 
miles, through a level country, and along a good road. The town of Jamaica, which stands about half way, is a 
convenient st.age for refreshment. 

"Tlie house in which you lodge is situated high, and on a gravelly soil. An extensive beach lies in front, on 
which the surf is continually beating; and, beyond the shoals and breakers, the noble prospect of the Atlantic 
ocean is terminated only by the rotundity of the globe. • From your windows 3'ou may see whatever vessels ply 
along the coast, and count them, whether inward or outward bound, as they pass tho lighthouse on Sandy Hook. 
The Neversink hills, in New Jersey, can also bo seen, and in the early part of the year whales are to be viewed, 
Bporting and spouting, at no gre.at distance from the shore. AVhat sights can be more grand than these 1 Animals, 
to which Beliemoth and Leviathan, famed of old, were but as pigmies ; ships, those unequalled contrivances of man, 
that, transporting tho produce of one country to another, beautifully display their sails and colors as they ride 
majestic over the billows; hills, that defy tho violence of the waves which ever since the creation havo assailed 
their foundations; an ocean, that rolls over the face of our planet beyond tho regions explored by Cook and 
Phipps, almost from pole to pole. 

" Sea-breezes, which regularly blow every day during the summer season, abate, in the most refreshing degree, 
the sultriness of July and August ; and they bring with them not only coolness to the inhabitant, but I know not 
what of wholesome and restorative power from the saline clement. Asthmatic, consumptive and emaciated 
patients have experienced their benefits, and without the expense and danger of a sea-voyage, so much recom- 
mended and so fashionable nowadays, have enjoyed, to their comfort, a marine air, and a water prospect. 

"Exercise, that is absolutely necessary to health, and difticult to be obtained in cities, can here be procured in 
perfection. The country, for several miles around, is delightfully even ; the highways are kept in excellent repair, 
and for a long distance you find not a stone to obstruct your carriage wheels. You either make an excursion inland, 
and divert yourself with the simple life and rural manners of the people, or proceed along the be.ich, at low water, 
on the milk-white sand, compacted almost as hard as a pavement, where the wide-rolling foaming surges tumble 
with fury to tlio shore. . 

" But to the effects of air and exercise, you may join, in the most convenient manner, the influences of sea- 
bathing. This cleanses, invigorates, and braces the body, in many disorders of debility, more than other known 
remedies. Ladies, especially, who are brought to weakness and languor by peculiar ailments, find their strength 
return, their beauty revive, and their ability to relish the joys and pleasures of life renewed, by a proper continu- 
ance of this salutary practice. The saltness, purity and coolness of the water, by their combined agency, render 
the bath truly medicinal and eflicacious, insomuch as to exceed, in many respects, the celebrated fountains of 
Lebanon and Saratoga. 

" In these several particulars, it cannot bo supposed there is any exaggeration in asserting that Rockaway 
fully equals Scarborough and Margate, noted jdaces of resort in England, and is superior to Tusculum, Pra?nesto, 
and Gaieta, celebrated by the classic penmen of Italy, as tho pleasant retreats of the Romans from the sweltering 
heat and sickly atmosphere of the town. 

" Yet it is not to be understood that Rockaway should bo recommended merely as a place of rendezvous for 
the diseased ; for this place is undoubtedly as well calculated to amuse the healthy as to restore the sick. Hero 
tho fowler, within an hundred rods of his lodgings, shoots snipes, curlews, and other birds, in plenty; or riding 
north half a dozen miles, to Hempstead Plain, which is itself a great curiosity, draws a trigger at the plover; or 
jtroceeding eastward a few leagues further, to Sufl'olk, tries his dexterity in the pursuit of heath hens and wood- 
jocka. Hence, too, tho angler launches his small boat, rows down the bay to the anchoring ground, an<l tells oo 



APPENDIX. 445 

his return how the number and size of the fishes he caught rendered the sport of pulling them on board border 
rather too much on fatigue. 'The sportsman has also a chance of diverting himself in the chace of foxes, which are 
very troublesome to the poultry of the neighborhood. 

"Animal and vegetable productions, in great abundance and variety hereabout, afford the naturalist an oppor- 
tunity of enlarging his knowledge of the Creator's works; he may, with botanical diligence, range the fitlds and 
woods in quest of new herbs and blossoms, or in his zoological enquiries, explore the creeks and Inlets to find 
among the natives of the water something rare and interesting. Forgetful awhile of the smaller operations of man, 
the philosopher may learn lessons of wisdom from contemplating the politics of nature. 

"How charming is it to retire to the shade of the trees and peruse one's fevorite books! Here, beneath the 
oaks, may the admirer of pastoral composition peruse the Idylls of Theocritus and Gessner; here sympathize with 
Sterne on the piteous case of Maria; here, in a solitude well fitting the subject, read again and again the Deserted 
Village of Goldsmith." 

The following letter by Charles Brockden Brown, then just entering upon his career as a man 
of letters, and temporarily residing in New York, describes a visit which he made to Rockaway 
in 1792 : 

" What possible amusement can you expect from my recital of a jaunt to Eockaway ? I cannot dignify trifles, 
or give to vulgar sights a novelty, by making them pass through my fancy. That fancy, you well know, has no 
particle of kindred to that of poet or painter, and nobody should pretend to describe, who does not look through 
the optics of either painter or poet. Besides, my ignorance circumscribes my curiosity. I have few objects of re- 
membrance with which to compare the objects that I meet with. Hence, as the carriage whirls along, faces, fences, 
houses, barns, cultivated fields, pass rapidly across my eye, without leaving a vestige behind them. Tou will 
of course ask me, how are the fields inclosed ? how are they planted ? what portion is tilled ? what is wood, 
and what is waste ? of what number, materials, dimensions, and form, are the dwellings, the granaries, the 
churches, the bridges, the carriages ? what the countenances, the dress, the deportment of the passengers ? and 
80 forth, through an endless catalogue of interrogatories. 

"Now I cannot answer a word to all these questions. Tour attention, on the contrary, during such a journey 
would be incessantly alive : you would take exact note of all these particulars, and draw from them a thousand 
inferences as to the nature of the soil, the state of agriculture, and the condition of the people. While your com- 
panions were beguiling the time by a nap ; by looking eagerly forward to the baiting place, and asking the driver, 
now and then, how many miles he had to go to dinner, or cursing the dust, the heat, the jolting, and the hard 
benches, or conversing with each other, all your senses, and your whole soul would be chained to passing objects. 
Not a stone would you meet with, but would instantly pass through your crucible ; not a tree or a post, but would 
serve as a clue to the knowledge of the soil, climate, and the industry of the island. Tou would count the passen- 
gers, take an inventory of their dress, mark their looks and their steps ; you would calculate the length, breadth, 
and "height of all the buildings ; and compare every thing you saw, from the church to the pig-pen, and from tho 
parson to the plough-boy, with all that you had seen elsewhere. 

"Such is the traveller, my friend, that you would have made; and you would have known more of Long 
Island in a few hours than many who have lived within sight of it these fifty years : I, alas ! am one of those whdin 
fifty years of observation would leave in the same ignorance in which they found me. 

" 'T is true, as you say, that such an unobservant wretch as I represent myself to be, may yet amuse by relating 
his own sensations, and his narrative, if it e've no account of the scene of his journey, will, at least, comprise a 
picture of his own character. An accurate n.story of the thoughts and feelings of any man, for one hour, is more 
valuable to some minds, than a system of geography ; and you, you tell me, are one of those who would rather 
travel into the mind of a ploughman, than into the interior of Africa. I confess myself of your way of thinking, 
but from very ditferent motives. I must needs say I would rather con.soj t for ever with a ploughman, or even with 
an old Bergen market woman, than esposa myself to an hundredth part of the perils which beset the heels of a 
Ledyard or a Park. 

"Tou see how ingeniously I put off this unplcafiint task: but slr.se you will not let me off, I must begin. 
Remember, it is a picture of myself, and not of the island, that you want; and such, how disreputable soever it 
may be to the painter, you shall have. I have some comfort in thinking, that most of the travellers to Eockaway, 
are but little wiser and more inquisitive tlian myself. 

" In the first place, then, we left I.'s at one o'clock. The day was extremely fine, and promised a most pleasant 
ride. Tou may suppose that we were most agreeably occupied in the prospect of a journey which neither of the 
three had ever made before; but no such thing. We thought and talked of nothing but the uncertainty of getting 
seats in the stage, which goes at that hour from Brooklyn, and the reasonable apprehension of being miserably 
crowded, even if we could get seats. Such is my Mfersion to being wedged with ten or twelve in a coach, 
that I had previously resolved to return, in case of any such misfortune. So I told my friends, but in this I fibbed 
a little, for the naked truth was, that I wanted a pretext for staying behind; having left society in New Tork, the 
loss of which all the pleasures of Rcckaway would poorly compensate. 

" We passed the river, and after dining at the inn, were seated in the coach much more at our ease than we 
had any reason to expect. We rode through a country altogether new to me, twelve or fourteen miles (I forget 
which) to Jamaica. Shall I give you a peep into my thoughts? I am half ashamed to admit you, but I will deal 
sincerely with you. Still, say I, my consolation is, that few travellers, if their minds were laid as completely 
open to inspection, would come off from their trial with more credit than myself. 

"I confess to you then that my mind was much more busily engaged in reflecting on the possible consequeneca 
of coming off without several changes of clothes in my handkerchief, and without an umbrella to shelter mo from 



446 APPENDIX. 

ennshine and rain, than with the fields and woods which I passed throngh. My umbrella I had the ill Inck tc 
break as we crossed the river, and as to clothes, I had the folly, as usual, to forget that Kockaway was a place of 
fashionable resort, and that many accidents might happen to prolong our stay there four or five days, instead of a 
single day; and yet, think not that I was totally insensible to'passing objects. The sweet pure country air, which 
was brisk, cool and fresh enough to make supportable the noon-tide rays of a July sun, to the whole force of 
which my seat beside the driver exposed me, I inhaled with delight. I remember little, however, but a country 
nearly denuded of its woods (as Sam Johnson would say), a sandy soil, stubble fields, houses fifty years old, 
a couple of miles from each other, and most of them, especially those furthest on the road, exact counterparts of 
Buch as we see in Dutch and Flemish landscapes ; four-wheeled rustic carriages, of a most disproportioned length, 
crazy and uncouth, without springs, entered from behind, and loaded with women and children, pigs and chickens ; 
not a single carriage of elegance or pleasure to be met with, though overtaken by half a dozen gigs, going to tha 
same place with ourselves. 

" "We reached Jamaica at five o'clock, and here we staid one hour. A glass of lemonade, a refreshing ablution 
In cold water, and a walk with B. in the church-yard opposite the inn, were all the surprising events which dis- 
tinguished this hour. The island is one of the oldest European settlements in North America, and we therefore 
expected to find in this churchyard some memorial of ancient days, but were disappointed. There were many 
gravestones broken, or half sunken, or blackened by age, but the oldest date was within forty years. The church, 
though painted anew and furbished up lately, was about seventy years old, as an inscription on the front informed 
us. There was another, of a much more antique cast, within view, but we did not approach it. 

" I hope you will be sparing of your inquiries respecting Jamaica, for I can answer none of them. I asked not 
a single question, statistical or topographical, of our hostess. I did not count the houses, and therefore can form 
no notion of the population. It is a spacious, good-looking village, many of the edifices of which appear to be 
built as summer retreats for wealthy citizens, and this is all I can say of it. 

"During our second stage, I was placed much more at my ease than during the first. I was seated beside a 
little girl, whom all the company took care to inform that they thought hor very pretty. For my part, her 
attractions made little impression on my fancy. To be infirmly delicate in form, to have a baby-like innocence of 
aspect, and a voice so very soft that it can scarcely be heard, are no recommendations to me. She prattled a good 
deal about a squirrel and canary-bird which she had at home, and that respectful attention was paid to a pair of 
sweet lips, which the words that fell from them would never have obtained. The rest of our company were men, 
and I had not wit enough to extract any oddity or singularity from their conversation or appearance. Two of 
them, you know, were my companions, and the other two cheerful and well-bred strangers. 

" I, for the most part, was mute, as I usually am, in a stage-coach and among strangers. Not so my two friends. 
B. finds a theme of talk and good humor in every thing, and J.'s amenity is always ready to pursue the other's lead. 
I forgot all their topics, except a very earnest discussion of the merits of ditferent lodging-houses at the sea-side, 
and many sympathetic elfusions, drawn forth by the shipwreck of another coach. On the first head we concluded 
to go to the house nearest the sea, one Ben Cornwaira, our purpose being as much to gratify the eye as the touch, 
and there we accordingly arrived, pretty late, on a chill, moist, and cloudy evening. 

"There are few men who are always masters of their spirits, and mine, which had not been high through the 
Aiji fell suddenly some degrees lower, on stepping out of the carriage into the piazza of the house. This place 
appeared, at the first glance, to want, at the same time, the comforts and seclusion of a private house, and the order 
and plenty of a public one. The scene without was extremely dreary, and the sea, which was not a quarter of a 
mile distant, gave us very distinctly the music of his multitudinous waves. 

" Our curiosity would not allow us to go to bed till we had touched the ocean wave. We, therefore, after a 
poor repast, hastened down to the beach. Between the house and the water is a wide and level expanse of loose 
■white sand, which ii i pretty good sample of Arabia or Zahara, as I have heard them described. Tell me, you who 
have travelled, wheth. • every countrj', in the temperate zone, of moderate extent, and somewhat diversified, 
contains not samples of every other 'quarter of the globe? 

" The air was wet to the touch and saline to the taste, but the novelty of the scene, which a canopy of 
dark clouds, with a pale star gleaming now and then through the crevices, tended to Increase, buoyed up my 
spirits to their usual pitch. To my friend B. this novelty was ab.iolute. 'He never before saw the ocean ; but to 
me it was new only as I now saw it, at night. Seven years ago I found my way to the margent of the sea, between 
Sandy Hook and the mouth of the Earitan. I took a long peregrination on foot, in company with two friends, and 
shall never forget the impression which the boundless and troubled ocean, seen for the first time from an open 
beach in a clear day, and with a strong wind blowing landward, made upon me. It was fiood-tide, and the s.andy 
margin formed a pretty steep shelf. The billows, therefore, rose to a considerable height, and broke with great 
fury against it; and my soul was suspended for half an hour, with an awe, a rapture, which I never felt before. 
Far difl'erent were my feelings oh this occasion, for the ocean was no longer new to me, and the scene itself wa3 
far less magnificent. There was scarcely any wind, the tide was ebbing, and the shore declined almost im- 
perceptibly. 

"As we came to this place for the purpose of bathing, and had so short a time to stay, we thought we could 
not begin too early, and therefore stript immediately, notwithstanding the freshness of the air, and what was ol 
greater moment, our ignorance of the locality. 

" Up pretty high on the shore is a house, no better than a fisherman's hut. 'T is a mere frame of wood, 
boarded at the sides and top, with no window but the door-way. The floor is sand, and there are pegs against the 
wall to hang clothes upon. There is a tub provided for cleansing the feet from the sand, which when wet clings 
to the skin like bird-lime. Towels, which are mrnished .at the house, we brought not with us. • 

" Is there any thing, the advantages of which are more universally and constantly manifested, than order? 
Its value is seen in the most trivial m.itters, as in the most momentous. This room was pitch-dark, and we were 
wholly unacquainted with it; and yet. by the simpV process of hanging our clothes, as we take them ofl', on a 



APPENDIX. 447 

peg, and putting them on in the same order reversed, there was no difficulty. Some of us were not so wise as to 
practise this order, and, of consequence, were condemned to grope about half an hour longer than others, in the 
dark, for stockings, sleeve-buttons, hats, and handkerchiefs. 

" What would physicians say to standing, naked, on a bleak night, with tho wind from the east, while the 
billows broke over you for ten minutes ? There is an agreeable trepidation felt, while the scene is new, and tho 
sudden effasion of cold water must, methinks, produce powerful eflfects of some kind or other. 

" As we were early comers to this house, we were honored each with a room to himself There were twenty 
or thirty perswis to be accommodated, besides a numerous family, in a wooden dwelling of two stories ; so that we 
could not but congratulate ourselves on the privilege thus secured to us. The chamber, however, allotted to me, 
was a little nook, about seven feet long and three wide, only large enough to admit the bedstead and him that 
slept on it. Yet, in such excursions as these, hardships and privations are preferable to ease and luxury. 
There is something like consciousness of merit in encountering them voluntarily and with cheerfulness. There is 
a rivalship in hardihood and good humor, more pleasurable than any delights of the senses. A splenetic or fasti- 
dious traveller is a great burden to himself and to his company, and ought, through mere generosity, to keep him- 
self at home. In saying this, I am conscious that in some degree I pronounce my own condemnation, but I hope 
I am not very culpable. 

"My friends rose at daylight next morning, and went to bathe. They g.ave me warning, but I did not heed 
it. My little nook had half melted me with heat, and I felt as if unqualified for the least exertion. I was sorry 
to have lost the opportunity, and rose, when the sun was high in the heavens, with some degree of regret. But 
more lucky than I deserved to be, I found a country wagon at the door, ready to carry down any one who chose 
to the strand. I went with another. 

"This was a far different bathing from that of the night before. The wagon carries us to ""~e water's edfe 
and there we may undress at our leisure amidst a footing of clean straw, convenient seats, and plenty of napkins. 
The wagon receives us directly from the water and carries us home, without trouble or delay. On this occasion 
the sun was just warm enough to be comfortable, and the time of day exactly suited to the bath. Such is my 
notion of the matter, but I doubt whether any body else will agree with me. Sunrise and sunset are the usual 
bathing times. 

"After breakfijst we took a walk along the strand. My pastime consisted in picking up shells ; in siftin" and 
examining the line white sand; in treading on the heels and toes of the wave, as it fell and rose, and in tryin^ to 
find some music in its eternal murmur. Here could I give you long discourse on all these topics, but my va^ue 
and crude reveries would only make my dull epistle still more dull. The sun at last broke out with the full force 
of midsummer, and we panted and waded through the sand homeward, with no small regret that we had ven- 
tured so far. We Americans in general have feeble heads : those of us, I mean, who were not born to dif ditches 
and make hay. A white hat, broad-rimmed, and light as a straw, is an insufficient shelter against the direct 
beams of the sun. What must we have suffered on this occasion when tha vertical rays fell on a surface of smooth 
white sand? We were almost exhausted before we reached our lodgings. 

"The company at this house was numerous, and afforded, as usual, abundant points of speculation. Some 
were young men, in their heydey of spirits, rattling, restless, and noisy. Some were solid and conversible, and 
some awkward and reserved. Three married women belonged to the company, one of whom said nothing, but was 
as dignified and courteous in demeanor as silence would let her be ; another talked much, and a third hit the 
true medium pretty well. I did not fail to make a great many reflections on the passing scene, which, tofether 
with a volume of Cecilia, made the day p.ass not very tediously. 

"My friends always carry books with them, even when they go abroad for a few hours. One of them, to-day 
produced the Maxims of La Bruyere, the other those of Eouchefoucauld, and some minutes were consumed in 
reading and commenting on these. But the subject which engrossed most attention in the morning was a plan 
for procuring a dozen of claret for the embellishment of dinner;- and the return of man and chaise, without 
the cluret, for which he had been sent to a distant tavern, cast a depression upon the spirits of most of us. We 
got rid of the afternoon pretty easily, by giving an hour or two to the bottle, and the rest to the fiesta. As to 
our talk at diuner, there was perfect good humor, and a good deal of inclination to be witty, but I do not 
recollect a single good thinf,' that deserves to be recorded ; and my powers do not enable mo to place the com- 
mon-place characters around me in an interesting or amusing point of view. As to myself, I am never at home 
never in my element, at such a place as this. A thousand nameless restraints incumber my speech and my limbs 
and I cannot even listen to others with a gay umembarrassed mind. Towards evening it began to rain, and this not 
only imprisoned us for the present, but gave us some apprehensions of a detention here for a week : a detention 
that, for many reasons, one of which I have already mentioned, would have proved extremely disagreeable 
to me. 

"My friend, I have grown very tired of my story. I believe I will cut sfiort the rest, and carry you back with 
me next morning, to New York, in a couple of sentences. The weather on the morrow was damp and lowering 
but it cleared up early. We were again agreeably disappointed in our expectations of a crowded stage, and after 
breakfasting at Jamaica, reached town at one o'clock. On my return, I was just as unobservant of the passin<' 
scene as before, and took as little note of the geography of the island. Get me out on the same journey a"'ain and 
I should scarcely recognize a foot of the way. I saw trees, and shrubs, and grasses, bnt I could not name them 
for I am no botanist. 

"Perhaps, however, I mistake the purpose of such journeys, which is not to exercise the reasoning faculties 
or to add to knowledge, but to unbend, to dissipate thought and care, and to strengthen the frame and refresh the 
spirits, by mere motion .and variety. This is the language which my friends hold; but, I confess, mere mental 
vacuity gives me neither health nor pleasure. To give time wings, my attention must be fixed on something; 1 
must look about me in pursuit of some expected object ; I must converse with my companion on some reasonable 
topic; I must find some image iu my own fancy to examine, or the way is painfully tedious. This jaunt to 



448 APPENDIX. 

Kockaway has left few a^eeable traces behind It. All I remember with any pleasure, are the appearance of the 
wide ocean, and the incidents of bathing in its surges. Had I been a botanist, and lighted upon some new plant; 
a mineralogist, and found an agate or a petrifaction ; an entomologist, and caught such a butterfly as I never saw 
before, I should have reflected on the journey with no little satisfaction. As it was, I set my foot in the city 
■with no other sentiment but that of regret for not having employed these two days in a very different manner." 

. VII. 

SCENES AND CHARACTEKS IN NEW YOEK, AS RE5IEMBERED BY MR. FRANCIS HERBERT. 

Of those annual miscellanies of literature and art, which, originating in Germany, became every 
where so popular as souvenirs of friendship some thirty years ago, none published in this country 
had greater excellences than " The Talisman," purporting to be vrHtten by one Francis Herbert, 
Esquire, but mainly produced by the now venerable Gulian C. Verplanck, William C. Bryant, and 
the late Robert C. Sands. The three volumes, issued in 1827, 1828, and 1829, to which the work 
extended, have become very rare, and probably few readers of the present time therefore have 
seen those agreeable "Reminiscences of New York," the composition of which was shared by Mr. 
Verplanck and Mr. Bryant, that are contained in the second and third volumes. As they illus- 
trate in a pleasant way various features of social life here, in the days of Washington, and 
to the close of the last century, it wiU not be thought that the following extracts from them 
are out of place among these notes : 

"New York is full of old reminiscences. Some are consecrated by religious feeling, and some by their connec- 
tion with the political destinies of our country. My father used to show me, when a boy, the spot on the North 
Eiver, just above the present Barclay street Ferry, where Jonathan Edwards, when temporary pastor of the "Wall 
street church, used to walk backwards and forwards on the *)litary pebbly shore, sounding the depths of his own 
conscience, and drawing 'sweet consolation' from the religion which he taught. Here he ruminated on the mys- 
teries of eternal preordination and free will, while fell upon his ear the murmurs of that ocean which is the symbol 
of eternity and power, and whose motions are controlled, like the events of our own lives, by the word and will 
of the Most High. Then likewise he showed me the little church, back of the site of the present Methodist chapel 
in John street, where "Whitfield, as my father expressed it, used to 'preach like a lion,' with a searching power that 
made the sinner quail, and shook and broke the infidel's stony heart. It was in Wall street that the apostolic Ten- 
nant lifted up his melodious voice, and sounded the silver trumjiet of the gospel. 

"In New York the philanthropic Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, landed on his first visit to America. 
This benevolent adventurer, during his stay in the city, lodged, I believe, in Stone street. At the corner of Bro.ad- 
way, in a house looking upon the Battery, were for a while the head-quarters of Wolfe, the conqueror of Canada, 
and afterwards those of that Lord Howe, who fell at Ticonderoga in the year 1756, and who, but for his untimely 
fate, might have been to England another Marlborough. 

" To come down to later times. On the site of the present Custom House, where the commerce of the world 
pays its tribute to the great treasury of the nation, stood the old City Hall, commanding a view of the wide and 
winding avenue of Broad street. Here, in a species of balcony, in the second story of the building, such as the 
Italians call a loggia, mean in its materials of wood and brick, but splendid in the taste and proportions given to 
it by the architect L'Enfant, the inauguration oath of the chief magistracy of the Union was administered, by 
Chancellor Livingston, to "Washington, the first of our Presidents. In front of the building an innumerable and 
silent crowd of citizens, intently gazing on the august ceremony, thronged the spacious area, and filled "Wall 
street from William street to Broadway. Behind the President elect stood a group of the illustrious fathers 
of the nation, Hamilton and Knox, and the elder Adams, and the vener.able and learned and eloquent Johnson, and 
Ellsworth and Sherman of Connecticut, and Clinton and Chief Justice Morris and Duane of New Tork, and Bou- 
dinot of New Jersey, and Rutledge of South Carolina, and, less conspicuous in person, though among the foremost 
in fame, the Yirginian Madison. There, too, stood the most revered of the clergy of New York,— the venerable 
Dr. Kogers, of the Presbyterian Church ; the wise and mild and suasive Dr. Moore, of the Episcopal ; t!ie dignified 
and eloquent Dr. Livingston, of the Dutch; and the learned Dr. Kunze and the patriotic Dr. Grose, of the German 
churches. Back of these stood younger men, since scarcely less illustrious th.an the elder statesmen I have men- 
tioned — Ames, and Cabot, and Gouverneur Morris, majestic and graceful in spite of his wooden leg. But why 
should I attempt to describe this great occasion by words ? I lately looked over the portfolio of my friend Dunlap, 
and found, among many other fine things, sketches which present this scene vividly to the eye, with the features 
of the great men who figured in it, and their costumes and attitudes, as' he himself beheld them. I wish 
somebody would employ him to paint a noble picture, such as he is capable of producing, on this magnificent sub- 
ject. The pride of a New Yorker, the feelings of a patriot, the ambition of an artist, and the recollections of this 
nteresting ceremony which still live in his memory, would stimulate him to do it ample justice. 

" Washington afterwards received the visits and congratulations of his countrymen, at an afternoon levee, a 
ceremony which was then thought by many somewhat too formal and court-like for our simple and republican 
manners, though now it would be looked upon as a very plain sort of a thing, and quite a matter of course. I 



APPENDIX. 449 

forget whether it was held at the fine old house at the head of Pearl street, occupied hy the lato Franklin Bank, 
or the other spacious mansion in Broadway, now Bunker's Hotel, for he lived in both, and in both I visited him. 

" Cedar street, since that day, has declined from its ancient consequence. I had the pleasure of seeing Mr. 
Jefferson in an old two-story house in that street, unbending himself in the society of the learned and polite from 
the labors of the bureau. And there was Talleyrand, whom I used to meet at the houses of General Hamilton 
and of Noah "Webster, with his club-foot and passiorless Immovable countenance, sarcastic and malicious even iu 
his intercourse with children. He was disposed to amuse himself with gallantry too; but who does not know, or 
rather, who ever did know Talleyrand ?— About the same time I met with Priestley— grave and placid in his man- 
ners, with a slight difficulty of utterance — dry, polite, learned and instructive in his conversation. At a period 
somewhat later, I saw here the deputy Billaud de Marennes, who had swayed the blood-thirsty mob of the 
Fauxbourg St. Antoine, turned the torrent of the multitude into the hall of the Legislative Assembly, and re- 
animated France to a bolder and more vigorous resistance against her foreign enemies. I visited him in the garret 
of a poor tavern in the upper part of "William street, where he lived in obscurity. But why particularize further? 
"We have had savans, litterateurs, and politicians by the score, all men of note, some good and some bad — and most 
of whom certainly thought that they attracted more attention than they did — Volney and Cobbett and Tom 
Moore, and the two Michaux, and the Abb6 Correa, and Jeffrey, and others: the muster roll of whose names I 
might call over, if I had the memory of Baron Trenck, and my readers the taste of a catalogue-making librarian. 
Have we not jostled ex-kings and ex-empresses and ex-nobles in Broadway ; trod on the toes of exotic naturalists, 
"Waterloo marshals, and great foreign academicians, at the parties of young ladies ; and seen more heroes and 
generals all over town than would fill a new Iliad ? 

" Pensive memory turns to other worthies, no less illustrious in their way. There was Billy the Fiddler and 
his wife, whom no one, having seen, could ever forget, and no one who had music in his soul, remember, without 
regretting that such a fiddle should ever have been hanged up. Billy had been a favorite of Mozart, at Vienna, 
and used to say that he had composed one (I forget which) of his six celebrated sonatas ; though I believe he 
drew rather too long a bow when he made this statement. He was about four feet six inches in height, with a 
foot as long as a fourth of his stature. His head was not disproportionate, as those of dwarfs usually are; but he 
had their characteristic petulance; and the irritability of his temper was certainly not improved by the enforced 
attendance of a retinue of idle boys, who always formed his suite when he walked forth in the streets. His wife was 
a suitable companion for him as to personal appearance and height; and it seemed, on looking at the couple, to be 
not at all wonderful how the Germans came by their wild and droll conceptions of goblins and elves. But I 
never heard of any other magic practised by Billy, except that the sweet and enlivening strains of his violin 
made the young masters and misses, at whose juvenile parties he officiated, dance off the soles of their shoes and 
stockings ; and that they would have begun upon their tender skins, if they had not been discreetly carried home. 

" There was also the family of the Hewletts, which, from tradition or observation, I may say I know for four 
generations, — cotemporaries of the successive Vestrises. Indeed, according to the family record, the first Hewlett 
was a pupil of the first "Vestris, and a favorite disciple of that great master ; who only complained that he was not 
sufficiently leger in his ascents, nor quite de, plonib enough in his descents ; but certified, that for grace, agility, 
and science, he was the prince of the eleven. The opinions of those, successively educated under the successive 
dynasties of these masters of aerial gymnastics, as fashion controlled both teachers and scholars, and as "longer 
puffs and louder fiddles" brought other professors of the graces of motion forward, varied as to the distinctive 
characteristics of their several excellences. Still the Hewletts kept their ground. They outlived the revolu- 
tion of seventy-six; — Trinity Church was pulled down — the Governor's Court fled from the Battery; but they 
kept the field, like the trumpeters of chivalr}'. They taught dancing to the belles, who captivated the members 
of the first Congress ; and tried to teach some of the members themselves. Then came the horrible French 
Eevolution ; and in that terrible storm which overthrew the landmarks of the old world, new manners and new 
teachers were drifted on our shores, and the Hewletts went out of vogue. There must be few who have dwelt in 
this now all-be-metamorphosed city, even for six years last past, who have not had occasion to observe the dapper 
legs and silken hose of the last of this line. But they will be seen no more. David Hewlett is dead; and as 
he trod lightly upon the earth, may the earth lie lightly upon him. He was a gentleman, every inch of him. He 
was the last of the ante-revolutionary dancing-masters : a kind, good, humble man. At St. Paul's I always found 
him, repeating the service with a formality, which was the result of decorous habit, and a fervor which could 
only have come warm from the heart. Again I say, light be the earth above him 1 and he must have a stern, 
hard heart, who can scoff at my honest tribute to the memory of my old dancing-master. 

" My reminiscences of New York, or rather the people that have been in it, come before my mind in pretty 
much the same order that "jewels and shells, sea-weed and straw," are raked by " old father Time from the ocean 
of the past," according to Milton or Bacon, or some other ancient writer of eminence. I had an uncle, who was a 
prudent man, in all his transactions ; and who, from patriotic considerations, waited for the development of 
events, before he took any part in the revolutionary war. He had many of what might be called tory recollec- 
tions of that period. He knew the Duke of Clarence, when he came here as a midshipman; skated with him on 
the Collect, where now stand the arsenal and the g.as manufactory, and helped out of a hole in the ice him wno is 
now official head of the English navy, and who may probably wield, ere long, the sceptre of the British Empire. 
In walking along Broadway, he has often pointed out to me the small corner-room in the second story of the 
house in "Wall street, opposite Grace Church, then and long after occupied by Dr. Tillary, a Scotchman, (formerly 
a surgeon and afterwards an eminent physician,) and told me how he used, at the period referred to, to eat oysters 
there, in the American fashion, with his Eoyal Highness, who preferred them to the copper-flavored productions 
of the British Channel. 

" Pine street is now full of blocks of tall massy buildings, which overshadow the narrow passage between, and 
make it one of the gloomiest streets in New York. The very bricks there look of a darker hue than in any other 
part of the city ; the rays of the sun seem to come through a yellower and thicker atmosphere, and the shadows- 

57 



450 APPENDIX. 

thrown there by moonlight seem of a blacker and more solid darkness than elsewhere. The sober oeci^ 
pations of the inhabitants also, who are learned members of the bar nearest Broadway, and calculating whole- 
sale merchants as yon approach the East Eiver, inspire yfiu with ideas of sedateness and gravity as yon walk 
through it. It was not thus thirty or forty years ago. Shops were on each side of the way, low, cheerfnl-look- 
Ing two-story buildings, of light-colored brick or wood, painted white or yellow, and they scarctly seemed a 
hindrance to the air and sunshine. Among these stood the shop of Auguste Louis de Singeron, celebrated for the 
neatness and quality of its confectionery and pastry, and for the singular manners of its keeper, who was at once 
the politest and most passionate of men. He was a French emigrant, a courtier and a warrior, a man of diminu- 
tive size, but of a most chivalrous, courteous, and undaunted spirit. He might be about five feet two Inches in 
helo-ht; his broad shoulders overshadowed a pair of legs under the common size, his fiery red hair was tied into 
club behind, and combed fiercely up in front; the upper part of his cheek bones, the tip of his nose, and the 
peak of his chin, were tinged with a bright scarlet ; his voice was an exaggeration of the usual sharp tones of 
his nation, and his walk was that of a man who walks for a wager. He was the younger son of a noble family, 
and having a commission in the French army, was one of the officers who defended the Tuileries on the melan- 
choly night of the leath of August, 1792, when the palace streamed with blood, and the devoted adherents of the 
king were bayoneted in the corridors, or escaped only to be prescribed and hunted down like wolves. Augusta 
Louis de Singeron made his way to L'Orient, took passage for the United States, and landed at New York without 
a penny in his pocket. His whole inventory consisted of a cocked hat, a rusty suit of black, a cane, a small sword, 
a white pocket handkerchief, and shirts, if I am justified in speaking of them in the plural, the exact number of 
which cannot now be known, as he never chose to reveal it, but which looked as if they had never been brought 
acquainted with the nymphs of the fountains. He at first betook himself to the usual expedient of teaching 
French for a livelihood, but it would not do. He lost all patience at correcting, for the twentieth time, the same 
blunder in the same pupil, he showed no mercy to an indelicate coupling of ditferent genders, and fell upon a 
false tense with as much Impetuosity as he had once rushed upon the battery of an enemy. But if he got into a 
passion suddenly, he got out of it as soon. His starts of irritation were succeeded by most vehement fits of 
politeness ; he poured forth apologies with so much volubility, and so many bows, and pressed his explanations 
with so much earnestness and vigor, and such unintelligible precipitation, that his pupils became giddy ^^•ith the 
noise, and at the end of his lesson were more perplexed than ever. In short, to apply the boast of a celebrated 
modern instructor, his disciples were so well satisfied with their progress, that they declined taking lessons a second 
quarter, and the poor Frenchman was obliged to think of some other way of getting a living. But what should 
it be? He had no capital and scarcely any friends. Should he become a barber, a shoeblack, a cook, a fencing- 
m.aster, a dentist, or a dancing master? Either of these occupations was better than to beg, to starve, or to steal, 
and the French nobility have figured in them all. — The flexibility of the national character adapts itself in mature 
age to any situation in life with the same ease that people of other nations accommodate themselves to that in 
which they are born. French marquises have sweltered in the kitchens of English private gentlemen, in greasy 
caps and aprons — French counts have given the polish to the nether extremities of the stately dons of Madrid — 
and French dukes have taken German ones by the nose. The graceful courtiers, who led down the dance the 
high-born dames of France, have exhausted themselves in the vain effort to teach Torkshiremen to shuflie 
cotillons; the officers of his most Christian Majesty's household h.ave drawn teeth for cockneys; and the 
chevaliers of the order of St. Louis have given lessons in the use of the broad-sword to men who afterwards 
figured as Yankee corporals. In the midst of his perplexity a mere accident determined the future career of 
Monsieur de Singeron. He had politely undertaken to assist in the manufacture of some molasses candy for a 
little boy, the son of his host; and, after a process attended with some vexations, during which the had thought 
two or three times that his French acquaintance would swallow him alive, he produced the article in such 
delicious and melting perfection, that his fame was quickly spread abroad among the boys of the neighborhood, 
as an artist of incomparable merit. He took the hint, got his landlord to assist him with a small credit, turned 
pastry cook and confectioner, set up in at first a small way, enlarged his business as he got customers, .and finally 
took a handsome shop in the street I have mentioned. The French have as great a talent for comfits as for com- 
pliments; and the genius that shines in the invention of an agreeable fl.attery, displays itself to no less advantage 
in the manufacture of a sugar plum. Auguste Louis de Singeron was no vulgar imit.ator of his clumsy English 
and Dutch brethren in the art. I speak not of tho splendor of his cryst.allizations, of the brilliant frost-work of 
his plum cakes, nor of the tempting arrangement he knew how to give to his whole stock of wares, though these 
were admirable. But the gilt gingerbread I used to buy of him, instead of King Solomon and the Queen of 
Sheb.a, was graced with the stately figures of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, the queen standing bolt upright, 
as became the conqueror of hearts and the mistress of the finest kingdom in the world, and the monarch holding 
her hand with a delicate inclination of his royal body, as if acknowledging the empire of beauty. He, I believe, 
first introduced the practice of stamping the New Year's cake with figures of Cupids among roses and hearts 
transfixed by an arrow in honor of la belle passion. His marchpane bore an impress of the farade of the 
Tuileries with its pilasters, columns, and carvings: and his blanc-mange was adorned with a bas-relief of war- 
riors in bag wigs and cocked hats, tilting fiercely at each other on its quivering and glancing surface. 

" I shall never forget the courtly and high-bred civility with which M. de Singeron used to welcome me to 
his shop, and bow me out of it. 1 have since seen the nobles of the court of Marie Antoinette, and was no longer 
at a loss to account for the graceful manners of my old friend the confectioner. It was not, however, quite safe to 
presume too much upon his forbearance, for he knew no medium between the most violent irritation and the 
most florid politeness. Ho had no patience with those people who stood in his door on a keen windy d.ay, and 
would neither come in nor go out. They alw.ays got from him a hearty curse in French, followed, as soon as ho 
could recollect himself, by something civil in English. " Peste soit de la bete"— he used to say—" Fermez done 
la— I beg pardon, sare, but if you vill shut de door, you sail merit my eternal gratitude!" The fellows who 
went about the streets crying " good oysters," and "fine Eockaway clams," avoided his ill-omened door in the 



APPENDIX. 451 

winter months, taught by bitter experience, and sundry ungracious and unexpected raps on the knuckles. He at 
first tried the plan of making them come in, shut the door, and deliver their errand, and then sending them about 
their business. This not succeeding, he tried the shining old lignum vitse cane, with which he used to promenade 
In the gardens of the Tnileries, and with much better etfect. On one occasion, however, he happened to bestow it 
rather rudely upon the nasal organ of a sailor. The fellow's proboscis was originally of most unnatural and por- 
tentous dimensions, it swelled terribly from the effect of the blow, and meeting with a pettifogger, who told him 
it was a good case for damages, he brought an action against the confectioner. Monsieur de Singeron in vain 
offered an apology and a plaster of bank notes, the sailor was inexorable, and insisted on producing his injured 
member before the seat of justice. He did so, but unluckily the effect on the jury was rather ludicrous than 
pathetic, and the impression it made was against the plaintiff, who got only ten shillings by his suit. M. de Sin 
geron thought it was not enough, and gave the fellow a five-dollar note besides, which he had the meanness to ac 
cept, though I believe he blushed as he did it. 

"Monsieur de Singeron afterwards sold cakes and confectionery in William street and then in Broadway, and 
finally was one of that joyful troup of returning exiles that flocked back to France on the restoration of the 
Bourbons. He was provided for by being made a Colonel of the Cuirassiers, and in the decline of his life his 
gallant and courteous spirit was no longer obliged to struggle with the hardships and scorns of poverty. I have 
lately heard, though indirectly, so that I cannot vouch for the fact, that he has been promoted to be one of the 
Marshals of France. 

"There was another Frenchman of distinction, also of the old school of French manners, but less fortunate 
than Monsieur de Singeron, who used daily to take his solitary walk through Broadway. I allude to Admiral 
Pierre de Landais, a cadet of the family of a younger son of the youngest branch of one of the oldest, proudest, 
and poorest families in Normandy. He had regularly studied in the Ecole, de la matine, and was thoroughly 
instructed in the mathematical theories of sailing and building a ship, although, like the rest of his countrymen, 
he always found some unexpected difficulty in applying his theory to practice. For a Frenchman, however, ho 
■was a good sailor ; but in consequence of his grandfather having exhausted his patrimony in a splendid exhibition 
of fireworks for tho entertainment of Madame de Pompadour, he had neither interest at court nor money to 
purchase court-favor. He was therefore kept in the situation of an aspirant or midshipmaL .i.til he was thirty- 
two years old, and I know not how many years more in the humble rank of sous lieutenant. He served his 
country faithfiWy and with great good will until, in the beginning of the reign of Louis XVL, a pago of the 
miotrcss of the Count de Vergennes came down to Cherbourg to be his captain. While he was boiling with in- 
dignation at this affront, the war between England and America broke out, and he seized that opportunity to 
enter the service of the United States. Here he at once rose to the command of a fine frigate, and the title ol 
adn'iral. Soon after came the brilliant affair of the Serapis and the Bon Homme Eichard, in which Paul Jones, 
by his impetuous and undisciplined gallantry, earned the reputation of a hero, and poor Landais, by a too scrupu- 
lous attention to the theory of naval science, incurred that of a coward. I believe that naval authority is against 
me : but I venture to assert, meo periculo^ on the authority of one of my uncles, who was in that action as a 
lieutenant to Paul Jones, that Landais erred not "through any defect of bravery, but merely from his desire to 
approach his enemy scientifically, by bearing down upon the hypothenuse of the precise right-angled triangle 
prescribed in the thirty-seventh " mancBuvre^^ of his old text-book. 

"The naval committee of Congress unfortunately understood neither mathematics nor French; they coidd 
not comprehend Landais's explanations, and he was thrown out of service. After his disgrace he constantly re- 
sided in the city of New York, except that he always made a biennial visit to the seat of government, to present a 
memorial respecting the injustice done him, and to claim restitution to his rank and the arrears of his pay. An 
unexpected dividend of prize money, earned at the beginning of the revolutionary war, and paid in 1T90, gave him 
an annuity of one hundred and four dollars — or rather, as I think, one hundred and five — for I remember his telling 
me that he had two dollars a week on which to subsist, and an odd dollar for charity at the end of the year. 

" Altnougn Congress under the new constitution continued as obdurate and as impenetrable to explanation as 
they were in the time of the confederation, the admiral kept up to the last the habits and exterior of a gentleman. 
His linen, though not very fine, nor probably very whole, was always clean; his coat threadbare, but scrupulously 
brushed ; and for occasions of ceremonious visiting, he had a pair of paste knee-buckles and faded yellow silk 
stockings with red clocks. He wore the American cockade to the last, and on the fourth of July, the day of St. 
Louis, and the anniversary of the d.ay on which tho British troops evacuated the city of New York, he periodi- 
cally mounted his old continental naval uniform, although its big brass buttons had lost their splendor, and the 
skirts of the coat, which ■wrapped his shrunken person like a cloak, touched his heels in walking, while the sleeves, 
by some contradictory process had receded several inches from the wrists. He subsisted with the utmost inde- 
pendence on his scanty income, refusing all presents, even the most trifling; and when my naval uncle, on one 
occasion sent him a dozen of Newark cider, as a small mark of his recollection of certain hospitalities at the 
admiral's table when in command, while he himself was but a poor lieutenant, Landais peremptorily refused them 
as a present which he could not receive, because it was not in his power to reciprocate. 

"He was a man of the most punctilious and chivalric honor, and at the same time full of that instinctive kind- 
ness of heart and that nice sense of propriety, which shrinks from doing a rude thing to any body on any occasion. 
Even when he met his bitterest enemy, as he did shortly after he came to New York, the man whose accusation had 
destroyed his reputation and blighted his prospects, whose injuries he had for years brooded over, and whom he 
had determined to insult and punish whenever he fell in with him, he could not bring himself to offer him any 
insult unbecoming a gentleman, but deliberately spitting on the pavement, desired his adversary to consider that 
pavement as his own face, and to proceed accordingly. 

" Thus, in proud, solitary, and honorable poverty, lived Pierre de Landais, for some forty years, until, to use 
the language of his own epitaph, in the eighthty-seventh year of his age, he " disappeared " from this life. As he 
.eft no property behind him, and had no relations and scarcely any acquaintances in tb4 ".iJiry jt i^e vt^'^i 



452 APPENDIX. 

been a matter of mystery to me, who erected hia monument, a plain white marble slab, which stands In tha 
ohurch-yard of St. Patrick's Cathedral, in New York." 

"Who would suppose that the exploded science of alchemy had ever its professors in the United States, where 
the easy transmutation of the soil of the wilderness into rich possessions renders unnecessary the art of con- 
verting dross into gold ? Yet such is the fact. Every body who has been a frequent walker of Broadway, in any 
or all of the forty years preceding the last five,* must recollect often meeting a man whom at first he might not 
have particularly noticed, but whose constant appearance in the same part of the street at the same hour of the 
day, and the peculiarities of whose dress and person, must at length have compelled attention. He was a plump- 
looking man, somewhat under the middle size, with well-spread shoulders, a large chest, a foir fresh complexion, 
a clear but dreamy eye, and a short quick stride, and had altogether the signs of that fulness of habit which 
arises from regular exercise and a good appetite, while a certain ascetic expression of countenance at once forbade 
the idea that it owed any thing to festivity or good cheer. His age, which never appeared to vary, might, from 
his looks, be estimated at five years on the one side or the ther of fifty. His dress was that of an old-fashioned, 
respectable citizen, educated before the age of suspenders, ; antaloons, and boots, and who had never been per- 
suaded to countenance those innovations of modern effeminacy. Notwithstanding its obsolete cut, it shov,-ed no 
signs of poverty except perhaps to those, and those only, who occasionally met him sweltering, with a laudable 
contempt for the weather, in a full suit of thick Prussian blue or Dutch black broadcloth in a hot August day; 
or striding through a snow storm, in nankeen breeches and white cotton stockings, in December. His name was 
Jan Max-Lichenstein; he was by birth a Pomeranian, and early in life going to Amsterdam to seek his fortune, 
became employed as a clerk in the great Dutch banking and commercial house of Hope and Co., with whom ha 
proved himself a good accountant, and rendered himself useful in their German and Swedish correspondence. 

"Afterwards, by some accident or other, he found himself an adventurer at St. Petersburg. What led him 
to that city I cannot say; I have never heard it accounted for among his acquaintances In this city, at Amsterdam 
I forgot to inquire, and St. Petersburg I have never visited. But thither he went, and having the good fortune to 
become known to Prince Potemkin, received an employment in his household, and finally came to be entrusted 
with the management of his finances. The prince, as every body knows, like many others, who have millions to 
dispose of, had constantly occasion for millions more ; and as every body also ought to know, who knows any 
thing of his private history, when his funds were so reduced that he had nothing left but a few millions of acres 
and a few thousand serfs, took most furiously to gambling and alchemy. These liberal employments were divided 
between him and his treasurer; the prince rattled the dice-box in the gilded saloons of Tzarzko Zelo, and the 
Pomeranian, in spite of his remonstrances and his own better judgment, was set to compounding the alkahest or 
universal menstruum, in the vaults under the north wing of Potemkin's winter palace. We soon get attached to 
the studies in which we are obliged to employ ourselves, and Lichenstein gradually found his incredulity 
yielding, and a strange interest stealing over him, as he read the books and sweated and watched over the 
operations of alchemy. The result was, that at length he became a believer in the mysteries of imbibition, solu- 
tion, ablution, sublimation, cohabation, calcination, ceration, and fixation, and all the martyrizations of metals, 
with tlie sublime influences of the Trine Circle of the Seven Spheres. 

'•Lichenstein, however, with all his diligence and increase of faith, could neither coin gold nor get it out of 
the prince's tenants in such quantities as it was wanted, and he was now destined to learn how much the favor oi 
the great depends upon the state of their stomachs. One morning, Potemkin, after a run of bad luck, plenty ol 
good champagne, a sleepless night, and an indigestible breakl'ast of raw turnips and quass, called upon him for an 
extraordinary sum, and not finding it easily furnished, flew into a passion and discharged him on the spot. As 
the prince never paid any debts but those of honor, Lichenstein knew it would be in vain to ask for his salary, 
and walked into the streets without a penny in his pocket. The late Chief Justice Dana, of Massachusetts, then 
our minister at the court of St. Petersburg, was about to return to America. Lichenstein had heard the most 
flattering accounts of the prospects held out in the United States to active and Intelligent adventurers from the 
old world, and readily believed all he heard, which, for a believer in alchemy, was no great stretch of credulity. 
He had some little acquaintance with the American minister, in consequence of once or twice negotiating for him 
small bills on the bankers of the United States at Amsterdam. He threw himself upon his generosity, and re- 
quested a passage to this country, a favor which was as readily granted. Here he was fortunate enough almost 
Immediately on his arrival to bo employed in the first mercantile house in New York, to answer their Dutch, 
German, and northern correspondence, with a salary, which though not half so large as that allowed by Prince 
Potemkin, he liked twice as well, because it was regularly paid. Ho had scarcely become well settled in New 
York, when his old dream of alchemy returned upon him. He carefully hoarded his earnings until he was 
enabled to purchase, at a cheap rate, a small tenement in Wall street, where he erected a furnace with a triple 
chimney, and renewed his search of the arcanum magnum. Every day in the morning he was occupied for two 
hours in the counting room, then he was seen walking in Broadway, then he shut himself in his laboratory until 
the dusk of the evening, when he issued forth to resume his solitary walk. 

"Year after year passed in this manner. Wall street, in the mean time, was changing its Inh.abitants ; its 
burghers gave way to banks and brokers ; the city extended its limits, and the streets became thronged with increas- 
ing multitudes; circumstances of which the alchemist took no note, except that he could not help observing that 
he was obliged to take a longer walk than formerly to get into the country, and that the rows of lamps on each side 
of Broadway seemed to have lengthened wonderfully towards the north; but whether this was owing to the 
ndvance of old age, which made his w.alk more fatiguing, or to some other unknown cause, was a problem which I 
believe he never fully solved to his own satisfaction. 

" Still the secret of making gold seemed as distant as ever, until it presented itself to him in an unexpected 
ihape. His lot in Wall street, which measured twenty-eight feet in front, and eighty-seven in depth, and for 

» This, it will be remembereii, was wriltea in ISil 



APPENDIX. 453 

«-hich he paid three hundred and fifty pounds, New York currency, had become a desirable site for a newly 
chartered banking company. One day Lichenstein was called by the president of this company from his furnace, 
as he was pouring rectified water on the salt of Mercury. He felt somewhat crusty at the interruption, as he 
hoped by reverberating the ingredients in Athanor, to set the liquor of Mars in circulation ; but when this person 
had opened to him his errand, and offered him twenty-five thousand dollars for the purchase of his lot, his ill 
humor was converted into surprise. Had he been offered five thousand he would have accepted it imme- 
diately: but twenty-five thousand!— the amount startled him — he took time to consider of the proposition, and 
the next morning was offered thirty-thousand by a rival company. He must think of this also — and before night 
he sold to the first company for thirty-three thousand. He was now possessed of a competency; he quitted his 
old vocation of clerk, abandoned his old walk in Broadway, and like Admiral Landais 'disappeared' — but not, 
I believe, like him, to another life. I have heard that his furnace has again been seen smoking behind a com- 
fortable German stone house in the comfortable borough of Easton, a residence which he chose, not merely on 
account of its cheapness of living, nor its picturesque situation, but chiefly I believe for its neighborhood to 
Bethlehem, where dwelt a Moravian friend of his attached to the same mysterious studies, and for its nearness to 
the inexhaustible coal mines of Lehigh. 

"As I write, my recollections of the past, both ludicrous and melancholy, crowd upon me. I might amuse 
my readers with a history of the ' Doctors' Mob,' which happened some forty years ago, when the multitude, 
indignant with the physicians and surgeons for having, as was supposed, violated the repose of the dead, be- 
sieged them in their dwellings with an intention to inflict justice upon them according to their own summary 
notions, obliging them to slip out at windows, creep behind beer barrels, crawl up chimneys, and get beneath 
feather-beds, — and when the grave gentlemen of the healing art were fed in dark places like haunted rebels or 
persecuted prophets, for three days and three nights. I might give my readers a peep into a little dark rovm in 
Pine street where Brown used to frame his gloomy and interesting fictions, without any aid from the picturesque, 
and entangle his heroes in one difiiculty after another without knowing how he should extricate them. I might 
show, residing In that part of Pearl street now enlarged into Hanover sqiiare, but then a dark and narrow passage, 
the fiimous General Moreau, who, when told that the street was not fashionable, replied that he 'lived in de house, 
and not in de street;' — a conceited grammarian, talking absurdly of that science, and magnifying its supposed 
discovery of three thousand new adverbs ; but otherwise gentlemanly, intelligent, and agreeable, and fortunate in 
his beautiful and accomplished wife." .... 

" I confess that I value much less any reputation which I might gain as a writer of romance and poetry, and 
as a painter of mauners, than the fame to be derived from the less ambitious but perhaps more useful office of 
faithfully gathering up and preserving those fragments of tradition and biography, which give to history its living 
interest, and embody with Jhe objects which we behold around us the memory of the good or wise who once lived 
among them. Even the traditions of more frivolous personages, as they may perhaps appear to some readers, are 
not wholly without their value, as being even more than the boasted stage, the 'mirrors and brief chronicles of the 
time.' In this city especially, it is of more importance to preserve the recollection of these things, since here the 
progress of continual alteration is so rapid, that a few years efl'ect what in Europe is the work of centuries, and 
sweep away both the memory and the external vestiges of the generation that precedes us. 

" I was forcibly struck with this last reflection when not long since I took a walk with my friend Mr. De Vielie- 
cour, during his last visit to New Tork, over what I recollected as the play ground of myself and my companions 
in the time of my boyhood, and what Mr. De Viellecour remembered as the spot where his contemporaries at an 
early period used to shoot quails and woodcocks. We passed over a part of the city which in my time had been 
hills, hollows, marshes, and rivulets, without having observed any thing to awaken in either of us a recollection of 
what the place was before the surface had bee^ levelled and the houses erected, until, arriving at the corner of 
Charlton and Varick streets, we came to an edifice utterly dissimilar to any thing around it. It was a wooden 
building of massive architecture, with a lofty portico supported by Ionic columns, the front walls decorated with 
pilasters of the same order, and its whole appearance distinguished by that palladian character of rich though sober 
ornament, which indicated that it had been built about the middle of the last century. We both stopped involun- 
tarily and at the same moment before it. 

" ' If I did not see that house on a flat plain,' said Mr. De Viellecour, 'penned in by this little gravelly court- 
yard, and surrounded by these starveling catalpas and horse chesnuts, I should say at once that it was a mansion 
which I very well remember, where in my youth I passed many pleasant hours in the society of its hospitable 
owner, and where, afterwards, when I had the honor of representing my county in the Assembly, which then sat 
in New Tork, I had the pleasure of dining ofiicially with Vice President Adams. That house resembled this 
exactly, but then it was upon a noble hill, some hundred feet in height, commanding a view of the river and of 
the Jersey shore. There was a fine rich lawn around it, shaded by large and venerable oaks and lindens, and 
skirted on every side by a young but thrifty natural wood of an hundred acres or more.' 

" Perceiving it to be a house of public entertainment, I proposed to Mr. De Viellecour that we should enter it. 
We went into a spacious hall, with a small room on each side opening to more spacious apartments beyond. • Yes,' 
said Mr. Viellecour, ' this is certainly the house I spoke of He immediately, with the air of a man accustomed 
to the building, opened a side door on the right, and began to ascend a wide staircase with a heavy mahogany rail- 
ing. It conducted us to a large room on the second story, with wide Venetian windows in front, and a door open- 
ing to a balcony under the portico. 'Yes,' said xny friend, 'here was the dining-room. Thei-e, in the centre of 
the table, Kat Vice President Adams, in full dress, with his bag and solitaire, his hair frizzed out each side of his 
face, as you see it in Stuart's old pictures of him. On his right sat Baron Steuben, our roj'alist republican disci- 
plinarian general. On his left was Mr. Jefferson, who had just returned from France, conspicuous in his red waist- 
coat and breeches, the fashion of Versailles. Opposite sat Mrs. Adams, with her cheerful intelligent face. She 
was placed between the courtly Count Du Moustiers, the French ambjissador, in his red-heeled shoes and ear- 
ilngs, and the grave, politi', and formally bowing Mr. Van Berkel, the learned and able envoy of Holland. There, 



454 APPENDIX. 

too, -was Chancellor Livingston, then still in the prime of life, so deaf as to make conversation with him difficult, 
yet so overflowing with wit, eloquence and information, that while listening to him the difficulty was forgotten. 
The rest were members of Congress and of our legislature, some of them no inconsiderable men. 

'"Being able to talk French, a rare accomplishment in America at that time, a place was assigned to me next 
the count. The dinner was served up after the fashion of that day, abundant, and, as was then thought, splendid. 
Du Moustiers, after taking a little soup, ke>t an empty plate before him, took now and then a crumb of bread into 
his mouth, and declined all the luxuri',* of the table that were pressed upon him, from the roast beef down to the 
lobsters. "VVe were all in perplexity to know how the count could dine, when at length his own body cook, in a 
clean white linen cap, a clean whUe tahlier before him, a brilliantly white damask serviette flung over his arm, and 
a warm pie of truffles and game in his hand, came bustling eagerly through the crowd of waiters, and placed it 
before the count, who, reserving a moderate share to himself, distributed the rest among his neighbors, of whom 
being one, I can attest to the truth of the story, and the excellence of the p&te. But come, let us go, and look at 
the fine view from the balcony.' 

" My friend stepped out at the door, and I followed him. The worthy old gentleman seemed much disap- 
pointed at finding the view he spoke of confined to the opposite side of Varick street, built up with two-story 
brick houses, while half a dozen ragged boys were playing marbles on the side walks. ' Well,' said he, ' the view 
is gone, that is clear enough ; but I cannot, for my part, understand how the house has got so much lower than 
formerly.' 

" I explained to my friend the omnipotence of the corporation, by which every high hill has been brought 
low, and every valley exalted, and by which I presumed this house had been abased to a level with its humbler 
neighbors, the hill on which it stood having been literally dug away from under it, and the house gently let down 
without even disturbing its furniture, by the mechanical genius and dexterity of some of our eastern brethren. 

" ' This is wrong,' said the old gentleman ; ' these New Yorkers seem to take a pleasure in defacing the monu- 
ments of the good old times, and of depriving themselves of all venerable and patriotic associations. This house 
should have been continued in its old situation, on its own original and proper eminence, where its very aspect 
would have suggested its history. It was built upwards of seventy years ago, by a gallant British officer, who had 
done good service to his native country and to this. Here Lord Amherst was entertained, and held his head- 
quarters, at the close of those successful American campaigns which by the way prevented half the state of New 
York from being now a part of Canada. Here were afterwards successively the quarters of several of our Ameri- 
can generals in the beginning of the revolution, and again after the evacuation of the city. Hero John Adams 
lived as Vice President, during the time that Congress sat in New York ; and here Aaron Burr, during the whole 
of his Vice Presidency, kept up an elegant hospitality, and filled the room in which we stand with a splendid 
library, equally indicative of his taste and scholarship. The last considerable man that lived here was Counsellor 
Benzon, afterwards governor of the Danish islands — a man who, like you, Mr. Herbert, had travelled in every 
part of the world, knew every thing, and talked all languages. I recollect dining here in company with thirteen 
gentlemen, none of whom I ever saw before, but all pleasant fellows, all men of education and of some note— the 
Counsellor a Norwegian, I the only American, the rest of every different nation in Europe, and no two of the 
Bame, and all of us talking bad French together. 

" 'There are few old houses,' continued Mr. De Viellecour, 'with the sight of which my youth was fomiliar, 
that I find here now. Two or three, however, I still recognize. One of these is the house built by my friend 
Chief Justice Jay, in the lower part of Broadway, and now occupied as a boarding-house. It is, as you know, a 
large square three-story house, of hewn stone, as substantially built within as without, durable, spacious, and com- 
modious, and, like the principles of the builder, always useful and excellent, whether in or out of fashion.' 

" ' I believe he did not reside there long,' said I. ^ 

" ' No, he soon afterwards removed into the house built by the state for the governors, and then to Albany, so 
that I saw little of him in that house beyond a mere morning visit or two. No remaining object brings him to my 
mind so strongly as the square pew in Trinity Church, about the centre of the north side of the north aisle. It is 
now, like every thing else in New York, changed. It is divided into several smaller pews, though still retaining 
externally its original form. That pew was the scene of his regular, sober, unostentatious devotion, and I never 
look at it witliout a feeling of veneration. But, Mr. Herbert, can you tell me what is become of the house of my 
other old friend. Governor George Clinton, at Greenwich?' 

" ' It is still in existence,' I answered, ' although in very great danger of shortly being let down, like the one in 
which we now are.' 

'"When I was in the Assembly,' pursued Mr. De Viellecour, 'the Governor used to date his messages at 
Greenwich, near New York.' Now, I suppose, the mansion is no longer near, but in New York.' 

" ' Not quite,' I replied, 'but doubtless will be, next year. In the mean time the house looks as it did.' 

" ' I remember it well — a long, low, venerable, irregular, white, cottage-like brick and wood building, pleasant 
notwithstanding, with a number of small low rooms, and one very spacious parlor, delightfully situated on a steep 
bank, some fifty feet above the shore, on which the waves of the Hudson and the tides of the bay dashed and 
sported. There was a fine orchard loo, and a garden on the north ; but I suppose that if not gone, they are 
going, as they say, in Pearl street ' 

" ' It is even so — were you often there ? ' 

" ' Not often, but I had there ^oo divers official dinners, and at one of them I recollect sitting next to old Me- 
lancthon Smith, a self-taught orator, the eloquent opposer of the adoption of the federal constitution, and the 
Patrick Henry of the New York Convention of 178S, who for weeks successfully resisted the powerful and discur- 
sive logic of Hamilton, and the splendid rhetoric of Eobert E.Livingston. On my other side and nearer thd 
Governor, sat Brissot de Warville, then on a visit to this country, whose history as a benevolent philosophic specu- 
latist, an ardent though visionary republican, and one of the unfortunate leaders of the Gironde party in the 
French National Assembly, every body knows.' 



APPENDIX. 455 

" * But fou say nothing of the Governor himself ? ' 

" ' Oh, surely you must have known him ! If you did not, Trnmbull's full length of him in the City Hall 
here, taken forty years ago, and Ceracchi's bust, of about the sanie date, will give you an excellent idea of his 
appearance.' 

" ' Oh yes — his appearance was familiar to me, and I knew him personally too ; but when I was in his com- 
pany, I was tod young to have much conversation with him, and afterwards, when he was last governor, and 
during his vice presidency, I was, you know, out of the country.' 

" ' His conversation and manners in private, corresponded exactly with his public character and his looks. His 
person and face had a general resemblance to those of "Washington, but though always dignified, and in old age 
venerable, he had not that air of heroic elevation which threw such majesty around the father of the republic. 
There was a similar resemblance in mind. If he had not the calm grandeur of Washington's intellect, he had the 
same plain, practical, sound, wholesome common sense — the same unpretending but unerring sagacity as to men 
and measures, the same directness of purpose, and firmness of decision. These qualities were exerted as Governor 
during our revolution with such effect that the people never forgot it, and they witnessed their gratitude by con- 
fiding to him the government of this state for twenty-one years, and the second ofiice in the union for eight more. 
His behavior in society was plain but dignified, his conversation easy, shrewd, sensible, and commonly about 
matters of fact— the events of the revolution, the politics of the day, the useful arts and agriculture.' 

" ' Is Hamilton's house still standing ? ' 

" ' Not that in which he labored as Secretary of the Treasury to restore the ruined credit of the nation, and 
reduce our finances and revenue laws to order and uniformity — where he wrote the Federalist, an5 those admirable 
reports which now form the most luminous commentary upon our constitution. That was in Wall street; it has 
been pulled down, and its site is occupied by the Mechanics' Bank. His last favorite residence was ihe Grange, 
his country-seat at Bloomingdale, which, when I last saw it, remained much as he left it.' 

" Mr. Yiellecour and myself ordered some refreshment, as a kind of apology for the freedoms we had taken 
with the old mansion. On leaving it we walked down Greenwich street, moralizing as we went on the changes 
which time was working so much more visibly in this little corner of the world than in any other part of it which 
I had seen — where the flight of years seemed swifter than elsewhere, and to bring with it more striking moral 
lessons. After an absence of thirty years from the great cities of Europe, I beheld, when I revisited them, the 
same aspect, venerable still, yet neither newer nor older than before, the same order of streets, the same public 
buildings, the same offices, hotels and shops, the same names on the signs, and found my way through their in- 
tricacies as if I had left them but yesterday. Here, on the other hand, when I returned after an absence of two 
years, every thiug was strange, new and perplexing, and I lost my way in streets which had been laid out since I 
left the city. 

" My companion often stopped to look at houses and sites of which he had some remembrance. 'There,' said 
he, pointing to a modest-looking two story dwelling in one, of the cross-streets — ' there died my good friend Mons. 
Albert, a minister of our French Protestant Church about twenty years ago, a very learned and eloquent divine, 
and the most modest man I ever knew. He was a native of Lausanne, a nephew of Deyverdun, the friend of 
Gibbon, who figures in the correspondence and memoirs of the historian. Mons. Albert was much in the society 
of Gibbon, and has related to me many anecdotes of his literary habits and conversation. 

" ' I must not sufier you to monopolize all the recollections of the city,' said I to my friend, ' Observe, if you 
please, that house on the corner opposite the one to which you have directed my attention. Theje lived for a time 
my old acquaintance Colles, a mathematician, a geographer, and a mechanician of no mean note. He was a kind of 
living antithesis, and I have often thought that nature made him expressly to illustrate that figure of rhetoric. 
He was a man of the most diminutive frame and the most gigantic conceptions, the humblest demeanor and the 
boldest projects, I ever knew. Forty years ago his mind was teeming with plans of western canals, steamboats, 
railroads, and other public enterprises, which in more fortunate and judicious hands have since proved fruitful of 
wealth to the community, and of merited honor to those who carried them through. Poor Colles had neither 
capital to undertake them himself, plausibility to recommend them to others, nor public character and station to 
give weight and authority to his opinions. So he schemed and toiled and calculated all his life, and died at eighty, 
without having gained either wealth for himself, or gratitude from the public. The marine telegraphs in this port 
are a monument of his ingenuity, for he was the first man of the country who established a regular and intelligible 
system of ship signals.' 

" My friend stopped at some of the shops to make inquiries concerning the ancient inmates. At length I heard 
him asking for Adonis. ' Pray,' said I, ' who is this modern Adonis for whom you are inquiring? some "smooth 
rose-cheeked boy " doubtless, like him of Mount Libanus.' ' This Adonis,' replied Mr. Yiellecour, ' is neither a 
" smooth nor rose-cheeked boy,'' being in fact a black old man, or rather gentleman, for a gentleman he is every inch 
of him, although a barber. I say is, for I hope he is still alive and well, although I have not seen him for some 
years. In this sneaking, fashion-conforming, selfish world, I hold in high honor any man who, for the sake of any 
principle. Important or trifling, right or wrong, so it be without personal interest, will for years submit to inconven- 
ience or ridicule' Adonis submitted to both, and for principle's sake.' 

" ' Principle's sake ! — upon what head ? ' 

" Upon his own, sir, or upon Louis the Sixteenth's, just as you please. Adonis was an old French negro, 
whom the convulsions, attendant in the West Indies upon the French revolution, threw upon our shores, and who 
held in the utmost horror all Jacobinical and republican abominations. He had an instinctive sagacity as to what 
was genteel and becoming in manners and behavior, as well as in the cut of a gentleman's hair, or the curl of a 
lady's. He had attended to the progress of the French revolution with the greatest interest, and his feelings were 
excited to the highest pitch when he heard of the beheading of the French king, and the banishment of the royal 
family. He then deliberately renounced the French nation and their canaille, parvenu rulers, and in testimony 
of the sincerity of his indignation and grief, took off his hat and vowed never to put it on again until the Bourbons 



456 APPENDIX. 

Bhould be restored to the throne. This vow he faithfully kept. For twenty-one years, through all weathers, did 
he walk the streets of New York, bare-headed, carrying his hat under his arm, with the air of a courtier, filled with 
combs, scissors, and other implements of his trade, until his hair, which was of the deepest black when he first took 
it off, had become as white as snow. For my part, I confess I never saw him on my occasional visits to the city, 
walking to the houses of his customers without his hat, but I felt inclined to take off my own to him. Like all the 
rest of the world, I took it for granted that the loyal old negro would never wear his hat again. At length, in the 

year 1814, the French armed schooner , with the white flag flying, arrived in the port of New York, bringing the 

first intelligence of the return of the Bourbons to their throne and kingdom. Adonis would not believe the report 
that flew like wild-fire about the city; he would not trust the translations from the French gazettes that were read 
to him in the American papers by his customers, but walked down to the battery, with the same old hat under his 
arm which he had carried there for twenty years, saw the white flag with his own eyes, heard the news in French 
from the mouth of the cook on board the vessel, and then waving his hat three times in the air, gave three huzzas, 
and replaced it on his head, with as much heart-felt pride as Louis the 18th could have done his crown.' 

"I could not help smiling at the earnest gravity of the old gentleman's eulogy upon Adonis. 'I fear,' said I, 
' that your chivalric coiffeur owes a little of his sentimental loyalty to your own admiration of every thing generous 
and disinterested. When you are excited on this head, sir, you often rem!:.'' me of what old Fuseli, in his energetic 
style, used to say of his great idol, Michael Angelo — "All that he touched wis indiscriminately stainped with his 
own grandeur. A beggar rose from his hands the Patriarch of poverty ; the very hump of his dwarf is impressed 
with dignity." I suspect you have been unconsciously playing the Michael Angelo in lighting up such a halo of 
consecrated glory round the bare and time-honored head of old Adonis.' " 

" We had now got far down into the old part of the city, when, turning up Vesey street from Greenwich, Mr. 
De Viellecour made a sudden pause. 'Ah,' said he, 'one more vestige of the past. There,' pointing to a common- 
looking old house, ' there, in 1790, was the atelier of Ceracchi, when he was executing his fine busts of our great 
American statesmen.' 

" ' Indeed I ' answered I — ' I have often thought of it as a singular piece of natural good fortune, that at a time 
when our native arts were at so low an ebb, we had such an artist thrown upon our shores to perpetuate the true 
and living likenesses of our revolutionary chiefs and sages. Ceracchi's busts of Washington, Jay, Alexander, 
Hamilton, George Clinton, and others, are now as mere portraits above all price to this nation ; and they have 
besides a classic grace about them, which entitles the artist to no contemptible rank as a statuary.' 

"' It was not a piece of mere good fortune,' said my friend. 'We have to thank the artist himself for it. 
Ceracchi was a zealous republican, and he came here full of enthusiasm, anxious to identify his own name in tho 
arts somehow or other with our infant republic— and he has done it. He had a grand design of a national monu- 
ment, which he used to show to his visitors, and which he wished Congress to employ him to execute in marble or 
bronze. Of course they did not do so, and, as it happened, he was much more usefully employed for the nation in 
modelling the busts of our great men.' 

" ' He was an Italian, I believe a Koman, and had lived some time in England, where he was patronized by 
Reynolds. Sir Joshua (no mean proof of his talent) sat to him for a bust, and a fine one I am told it is. Ceracchi 
came to America enthusiastic for liberty, and he found nothing here to make him change his principles or feelings. 
But the nation was not ripe for statuaryr- a dozen busts exhausted the patronage of the country, and Congress was 
too busy with pounds, shillings and pence, fixing the revenue laws, and funding the debt, to think of his grand 
allegorical monument. Ceracchi could not live upon liberty alone, much as ho loved it, and when the French 
revolution took a very decided character, ho .vent to France, and plunged into politics. Some years after he re- 
turned to Eome, where he was unfortunately killed in an insurrection or popular tumult, growing out of the uni- 
versal revolutionary spirit of those times.' 

" ' May his remains rest in peace,' added I. ' Whatever higher works of art he may have left elsewhere— and 
he who could produce those fine classic, historical busts, was undoubtedly capable of greater things— whatever 
else he may have left in Europe, here his will be an enduring name. As long as Americans shall hold in honored 
remembrance the memory of their first and best patriots — as long as our sons shall look with reverent interest on 
their sculptured images, the name of Ceracchi will be cherished here : 

" ' And while along the etream of time, their name 
Expanded flies and gathers all its fame ; 
Still shall his little barque atterdaut sail, 
Puriud the triumph and partake the gale.* '* 



Ilf D EX. 



A. 

Academy of Sciences, French, the Marquis de Chastellux 
a member o£ in 1775, 9. Condorcet delivers an ora- 
tion on Friuklin, before, 223. 

Adams, CharUs, son of John, attends his mother, at Mrs. 
Washingtot's first levee in Philadelphia, 326. Mar- 
ries Sally, sitter of Colonel William S. Smith, 80. 

Adams, John, at Paris, in 1784, 294. At London, in 1785, 
73. Delegate(17SS) to Congress, 96. Vice President, 
17S9, 122. Ilii reception at Boston, Hartford, New 
Haven, and Ntw York, 123. Takes part in the cere- 
monies of Wifehingtons inauguration, 140. "With 
Washington at Boston, 189. Dines with Washington, 
164, 191. At a hill with him, at New York, 154 ; and 
at Boston, 192. '.lis tributes to Washington, 135, 419. 
Present at the canmencement of Columbia College, 
in 1789, 158. Diies with the French Charge, 1790, 
217. Dines with laron Burr, 895. Describes a din- 
ner-party at Gouvsrneur Morris's, 895. His interest 
in the case of Geoige W. Lafayette, 890. His notice 
of M. Fauchet and il. Adet, 884, 885. His account of 
Erick Bollman, 389. His defence of the American 
Constitution, lightlj spoken of by Mr. Giles, 896, 
note. Extract from a letter of his to his daugh- 
ter, on the Moravian School at Bethlehem, Penn., 8, 
note. His daughter marries Col. William S. Smith, 

91. Falsely charged with having predilections 

for kingly and aristocratic institutions, 221. Favors 
official titles, 154. His character vilified in Freneau's 
National Gazette, 841. His graphic account of Ames's 
spe.ech on Jay's treaty, 363. His place of resi- 
dence at New York, 166, note. His account of Dr. 
Perkins and his tractors, 403. Is a guest at Washing- 
ton's farewell dinner, 418. His inauguration as Pres- 
ident, 419. Washington makes him a visit, imme- 
diately after his inauguration, 420. Notice of, by his 
daughter, 96; 

Adams, Mrs. John, at Braintree, Paris, London, and New 
York, 170. Her only daughter, 170. Her son, John 
Quincy Adams, 171. Anecdote of her .ind Judge Pe- 
ters at London, 265*. Attended by her son Charles, 
at Mrs. Washington's first levee in Philadelphia, 326. 
At St. Paul's. New York, July 4, 1789, 178. Her ac- 
count of the gayety at Philadelphia, in 1791, and of 
social life there, 327. Her favorable opinion of the 

58 



beauty of American women, 295. Her opinion of 
Miss Martha Jefferson, 218, note ; and of Josiah Quin- 
cy, 400. Extracts from her letters to Mrs. Shaw and 
Thos. Brand Hollis, 168, 169. Glowing description of 
her place of residence at New York, 168, 169. Her 
removal to Philadelphia, 249. Her household cares 
there, 250. Her account of the old PhiLadelphia thea- 
tre, 371. Visited by Mrs. Bingham, 250. Notice o^ 
169, 170. 

Adams, Miss, only daughter of John, at Paris, in Octo- 
ber, 1784, 294. Her account of the manners and dress 
of Mrs. Bingham of Philadelphia, 295. See Smith, 
Mrs. Col. W. S. 

Adams, John Quincy, son of John, secretary to Mr. Dana, 
the American Minister at St. Petersburg, 7S. Notice 
of his visit to the family of Colonel Smith, SO; and 
of other visits, 80, 81, 82. His remark on the beauty 
of American women in 1785, 295. Verses by, written 
in the scrap-hook of a grand-daughter of his sister, 
171, note. Notice of, 78, 79. 

Adams, Samuel, and Mrs. Adams at the brilliant assem- 
bly at Boston, in 1789, 192. 

Adet, Pierre Auguste, minister from France to the United 
States, arrives at Philadelphia in 1795, 885. Super- 
sedes M. Fauchet, 360, 884, 385. Oliver Wolcott's ac- 
count of, 885. Notice of him and Madame A., 885. 

Afflick, Captain, visits Miss Franks, 24, 25. 

Aguesseau, M. de, grandfather of the Marquis de Chas- 
tellux, 160. 

Aitkin, Robert, printer at Philadelphia, visited by Dr. 
Belknap, the historian, 115, 117. 

Aix la Chapelle, mention of the peace of, 204. 

Albany, New York, visited by Mr. 'Jefferson and Mr. 
Madison, 340. Stage-coaches from, to New York city, 
twice a week, "117, note. 

Albany Pier. See New York city. 

Alexandria, Virginia, Washington tarries there on his 
way to New York, 125. The Mayor of, his address to 
Washington, 125, 126. Mr. Jefferson there, on his 
way to New York, 219. Washington's birth-day 
(1790) celebrated there, and at most of the large towns 
in the United States, 217. 

Alfieri, the Italian poet, addresses to Washington his tra- 
gedy of The First Brutus, 430. 

Allen family, of Philadelphia, prominent there, 12, 13, 23, 
25, 294, 826, 358. 



458 



INDEX 



Allen, Andrew, of Philadelphia, his daughter marries 
Mr. George Hammond, the British Minister, S58, 380. 

, Misses, of riiiladelphia, throe beautiful sisters, 326. 

, Mr. and Mis., of Kew York, in the first circle ^f 

society, 9S, note. 

, the Boston poet, 405. 

AlliMwe, between France and the United States, 21T. 

Alsop, John, of New York, a retired merchant, in the so- 
cial circle of Mrs. Jay, 98, note. Member of the Con- 
tinental Congress, 30, twie, 99. His daughter Mary 
marries (1786) Eufus King, 30, note, 99; letter of John 
Adams on the occasion, 100. His fanjily residence, 
80, note. 

, Ilichard, one of the " Connecticut wits," 206. 

America. See Liiited States. 

American Philosophical Society, appoint Dr. Smith to 
pronounce a discourse on the character of Dr. Frank- 
lin, 223. 

Ames, Fisher, a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, in the first Congress under the new Constitu- 
tion, 119. Member of the joint committee of arrange- 
ments, at Washington's inauguration, 189. Writes a 
humorous letter to Jeremiah Smith, 862. A friend 
and guest of Oliver Wolcott, 899. Account of his 
great speech on Jay's treaty, 862, 863. John Adams's 
graphic account of it, 863. His place of residence in 
Great Dock street. New York, 166, note. 

Am,esliury, Massachusetts, Washington's reception at, 
195. 

Anderson, Mr., his house in Pearl street, New York, in 
1789, 166, note. 

Andre, Major, sentimental verses and romances on, ex- 
travagant, 19. Author of an interesting account of 
the most celebrated fete ever given in Philadelphia, 
19. 

Andrews, V-^x. Dr., one of the most eminent clergymen 
in Philadelphia, in 1791, 266. 

Andreani, Count, visits the United States, 878. 

Anguie, the beautiful Madame, sister of M. Genet, 351, 
note. 

Annapolis, Maryland, Washington's reception at, 4, 330. 
Ball at the State House, 4. Extract from Washing- 
ton's reply to a speech of the Mayor of, 4. 

Antoinette, Marie, mention of a plaintive air composed 
on the execution of, 39.3. 

Apthorp, Miss, marries Dr. Hugh Williamson of North 
Carolina, 102, 103. 

Ardent Spirits, tax on, 329. 

Arms, Coat of, of Joseph Willing, 14, note J. 

Armstrong, General, in the social circle of Mrs. Jay, at 
New York, 98, note. His account of some leading 
characters in society, 101. His remarks on marriage, 
101. His description of the Count de Moustier and 
his sister, 93. Extract from his letter to General 
Gates, on the election of Washington to the Presi- 
dency, 122, note. 

Army, British. See British Army. 

, Kevolutionary, of America, disbanded (Nov. 2, 

1783), 1. Ollicers of, Washington's farewell to, 2. 
Soldiers of, Washington's farewell to, 1. 

Arnold, Mrs., mention of a letter from, to Miss Franks, 
26. 

AsKburton, Lord, great grandson of Thomas Willing, of 
Philadelphia, 14, note *. Marries Anne, oldest daugh- 
ter of William Bingham of Philadelphia, 380, 418, 
note. 

Asheton family, of Philadelphia, among the first, 12. 

Anhley Ferry, Charleston, South Carolina, Washington 
there on his way to Savannah, 326. 

Assembly Room at New York, on the East side of Broad- 
way, above Wall street, 155. See Balls. 
See French Bevolutioii. 



Atlee, Judge, takes part in the celebration, at Philadol 

phia, of the ratification of the Constitution, 106. 
Attorneys in New York City, list of, in 1789, 175. 
Assemllies, City Dancing, in Philadelphia, in 1743; snt- 

scribers to, 1.8, note. Belles and Dames attending, in 

1757, 13, note. 
Augusta, Georgia, reception of Washington at, 388. 
Aurora, The, Bache's democratic journal, 357. Its !ow 

abuse of the President, 857, 413, 416. 
Autun, Talleyrand bishop of. See Talleyrand. 

B, 

Bache, Benjamin Franklin, editor of the violent iemo- 
mocratic journal, the Aurora, 857, 413, 416. 

, Miss, grand-daughter of Dr. Franklin, narrles 

Harwood, the player, 372. 

Bailey, Dr., a popular physician in New York, lf7. 

, General, his residence in Yew York, 80, lote. 

Baillie, Mr., with Washington at Perrysburg, 3?6. 

Baird, Patrick, subscriber to the dancing assembly in 
Philadelphia, In 1748, 13. 

Baldicin, Abraham, delegate from Georgia to the Con- 
vention, 74 His place of residence in lew York, 
167, note. Character of, 74. 

Balloon ascension. See Blanchard. 

Balls. At Annapolis, in the State House (Dec, 1783), 
opened by Washington and Mrs. Macubbin, 4, note. 
At New York (May 7, 1789), in the Assembly Room, 
154-156. Two sets of cotillions (at the Count de 
Moustier's), in military costume, 155. At Salem, 
194; at Portsmouth, 197; Wilmington, N. C, 881; 
Charleston, 834; Augusta, 888; Cohnibia, 388; Phi- 
ladelphia (on Washington's retirement from public 
life), 415. 

Baltimore, Maryland, receptions of Washington at, 126, 
161. Celebration at, of the ratifica.ion of the Consti- 
tution, 105. Mr. Jefi'erson rests a tay at, 319. 

Bank, National, the financial scheme? of Hamilton result 
in the e stoblishment of, 273, 829. 

, of New York, notice of, 33, nde. Its first presi- 
dent, 33, note. 

Barhary States, mission to, off'ered by Jefferson to Col. 
Trumbull, 396. 

Barclay, Mr., in the Invitation Lift of Mrs. Jay, at New 
York, 98, note. 

Bard, Mrs. Peter, one of the "be1es and dames" of the 
Philadelphia City Assemblies in 1757, 13. 

, Dr. Samuel, a popular physician at New York, in 

1789, 177. A member of he New York "Social 
Club," 148, note. Washingtm's attending physician 
in a case of anthrax, 178. His account of Washing- 
ton'scomposure at the thought of death, 179. 

Barere, the French revolutionist, 352. 

Baring, Alexander. See Ashlurton. 

, Henry, marries the wiaow of Comte de Milly (Ma- 
ria Bingham), 418, note. 

Barlow, Joel, author of the. " Vision of Columbus," a 
class-mate of Oliver Woljott, 205, 206. His " Vision" 
quoted, 404. 

Barney, Captain, presents a miniature ship to Washing- 
ton, 105. 

Bart, Jean, the French packet from which M. Fauchet's 
famous letters were thi'own overboard, 358. 

Bassett, Ilichard, of Delaivarc, a member of the Senate 
of the United States, his residence at New York, in 
1789, 166, note. 

Bath, England, the Abbey Church at, contains a monu- 
ment to Wm. Bingham, 418, note. 

Battery. See New York City. 

Battle Abbey Boll, a sort of, formed by the early provln 
cial aristocracy of Philadelphia, 11. 



INDEX, 



459 



Bauman, Colonel Sebastian, a Revolutionary officer, his 
artillery, 133, note, 117. His fireworlvs. 111, 145. His 
review and sham-fight for Washington's entertain- 
ment, 211. His family residence at New York, 30, 
note. 

Bayard, Mr., of New York, his city residence in 17S3, 31, 
note. His country residence, 81. Had been a Tory, 
81. His family in the social circle of Mrs. Jay, 98, 
note. His family visited by John Quincy Adams, 81. 

Bayard, The Misses, pay their respects (May, '89) to Mrs. 
Washington, 164. Present at the Inauguration Ball 
at New York (May 7, '89), 156. 

, Major, one of the Committee who waited on Mrs. 

Washington at Philadelphia, in 1775, 163, note. 

Bayard's Farm, New York, 111. 

BeacU, Eev. Mr., of New York, one of the fourteen 
clergymen there in 1789, 138, note. 

Beaujolais, Count de, brother of Louis Philippe, joins 
him in America, 336. His travels in this country, 
887. 

Beaujour, Chevalier Felix de, his description of Phila- 
delphia, 11. His views of American society, 438, 439. 

Beawmet, M. de, visits America with Talleyrand, .380. Is 
introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Breck, by Mrs. Church, 
SSO. Attempts to take the life of Talleyrand, 882, 383, 
384. 

Beckley, John, Clerk of the House of Representatives, 
his place of residence in New York, in 1789, 167, 
note. 

Bectcwith, Major, in the social circle of Mrs. Jay, at New 
York, 98, note. 

Bedford, New York, John Jay's estate at, 317, note. 

Beehman family, one of the most conspicuous in New 
York, 1789, 203. The family residence, 30, note. Mrs. 
Beekman at the Inauguration Ball, 156. She pays 
her respects to Mrs. Washington, in 1789, 164. 

Belknap, Rev. Dr. Jeremy, author of the History of New 
Hampshire, 115. Account of his travelling adven- 
tures, 115-117. Extracts from his letters to his wife, 
115-117; Pays his respects to Washington, at Boston, 
190. 

Bend, Grove, his fashionable haberdashery at New York, 
80, note. 

Beneset family, among the elder provincial aristocracy of 
Philadelphia, 11. 

Bennington, Vt., visited by Jefferson and Madison, 340. 

Benson, Egbert, of New York, one of the attorneys of the 
Supreme Court in 1789, 175. Member of the New 
York "Social Club," 148, note. One of the Joint 
Committee of Arrangements, at the Inauguration of 
Washington, 139. In the social circle of Mrs. Jay, 98, 
note, liis place of residence in 1789, 166, note. 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Moravian school for young 
ladies at, 7. John Adams' account of the school, 8, 
note. 

Biddle family, of Philadelphia, one of distinction, 12. 

, Charles, unites with the democrats in their address 

to Genet, 350. 

Biddulph, Mr., pays his respects to Miss Franks, 25. 

Bingham., William, the elder, subscribes for the Phila- 
delphia dancing assemblies, in 1743, 13, note. 

— -, William, the young'er, his sumptuous dinners and 
delightful parties, 327, 328. United States Senator, 
291. Dines (1789) at Dr. Shippen's, 153. Takes part 
in the reception (1789) of Mrs. Washington at Phila- 
delphia, 161. One of the pall-bearer^ at the funeral 
of Dr. Franklin, 121. His celebrated family mansion 
at Philadelphia, 297. His mansion assailed by a mob, 
364. Gives the Viscount do Noailles the free use of 
rooms, 379. Louis Philippe intimate with him, 386; 
and proposes marriage to one of his daughters, 386. 
Sends a portrait of Washington to Lord Lansdowne, 



411, 412. Is a guest at Washington's farewell dinner, 
418. His death and monument, 418, note. 

Bingham, Mrs. Anne,wife of Wm., the centre of fashiona- 
ble society at Philadelphia, 203. Her beauty and char- 
acter described, by Mrs. John Adams, 250, 296 ; by 
John Q. Adams, 80; by Miss Adams, 296; and by 
Mr. Wood, 874, note. Is at Mrs. Washington's first 
levee in Philadelphia, 826. Her difference with 
Wignell, manager of the theatre, 874, and note. Her 
dress, 295. Her family connection, 299. Washington 
presents to her one of the portraits of himself by 
Madame de Brehan, 409. Her illness and death, 413, 
note. Biographical notice of, 409, 413. 

, Anne, daughter of Wm., marries Alexander 

Baring, 890, 418, note. 

, Maria, daughter of Wm., marries three times, 

418, note. The names of her husbands, 418, note. 

Binney, Horace, of Philadelphia, brother of Mrs. Susan 
Wallace, 366. Author of the inscription on the monu- 
ment to Thomas Willing, 16, note*. 

, Mrs. Mary, mother of Mrs. Susan Wallace of 

Philadelphia, 365. Often visits Mrs. Washington, 
310, 866. 

, Dr., his place of residence in Philadelphia, 891. 

Black Sam. See Fraunces, Samuel. 

Blackburn, the artist, his portraits commended, 407. 

Blackwell, Eev. Dr. Robert, of Philadelphia, 299. His 
•wife, sister-in-law of Mrs. Bingham, 299. 

Bladenshurg, Maryland, mentioned, 402, 403, note. 

Blagrove, Rev. Benjamin, of Virginia, his public concert 
at Trinity Church, New York, 226. 

Blair, John, is appointed, by Washington, as one of the 
Judges of the Supreme Court of the U. S., 181. Ac- 
companies Washington to Newport, 227. 

, Miss, Marries Nicholas Brevoort, 104. 

Blaisel, Marquis de, marries the widow of Comte de Tilly 
(Maria Bingham), 418. 

, Marquise de, a member of the Willing family of 

Philadelphia, 14, and notef. 

Blanchard, M., aeronaut, makes (1798) the first balloon 
ascension in the U. S., in presence of Washington, 
877. French verses on the occasion, 377. 

Bland, Theodoric, of Virginia, member of Congress, 166, 
note. His place of residence in New York, in 1789, 
166, note. Uncle of John Randolph, 208. 

Bleecker, Mrs., of Tomhannik, a poetess, 405. 

Blount, Mr., in the Invitation-list of Mrs. Jay, 98, note. 

Boismont, M. Brierre de, his account of Talleyrand's dan- 
ger of losing his life, 382. 

Bollman, Dr. Erick, account of, by John Adams, 389; and 
by Hamilton, 889. 

Bond, family of, at Philadelphia, one of the most promi- 
nent, 12, 18, note. Represented now in female lines, 
13, note. 

, Phineas, of Philadelphia, in the list of subscribers 

to the City Assembly balls, in 1748, 18, note. Mrs. 
Bond, attended the assemblies, in 1757. His house 
assailed by a mob, at, the time of Jay's treaty, 364 

, Mrs. Thomas, of Philadelphia, attended the assem- 
blies in 1757, 13, note. 

Bon7iei rouge, used at a democratic dinner at Philadel- 
phia, in honor of Genet, 350. 

Boston, Massachusetts, rapid increase of the population 
of, 7. Boston, Albany, and Philadelphia General 
Stage Oftice, kept by Samuel Fraunces, in Cortlandt 
street. New York, 117, note. Mails from New York 
to, three times a week in summer, and twice a week 
in \rtnter, ib. John Adams escorted to, in 1789, 123. 
Order of procession at Washington's reception there, 
188. Address of the Governor and Council to him.' 
and his reply, 191. His birthday celebrated (1790) at, 
217. Social refinement of, 7—10, 297. The Mar- 



460 



INDEX. 



quia de Chastellux's remarks on social life there, 8. 
His remarks on tlie awk^vard dancers tliere, 8. Wo- 
men of, compared by him with those of Philadel- 
phia, 8. State of female education there, in 1767, 297. 
Miss Temple, long a reigning belle of, 10. Brissot's 
remarks on the state of society there, 10. The peo- 
ple of. too philosophical in their religion, 10. Costume 
of the people of, 332. The sash worn by the ladies 
of, at the time of Washington's visit there, 192. 

Boston Mercury, a journal, announces Mrs. Morton's 
poem of " Beacon Hill," 406. 

Boudinot, Klias, of New Jersey, the family ancestors of, 
among the principal families of Philadelphia, 12. 
Brother of Mrs. Stockton, 405. Member of Congress, 
119, 106, note. His place of residence (1789) at New 
York, 160, note. His glowing description of Wash- 
ington's passage from Elizabethtown, 130 — 134. His 
only daughter, 894, and note. His description of the 
Count de Moustier's ball (May, 1789), 158. 

Boundary line between Pennsylvania and Virginia, 360. 

Bourne, Sylvanus, conveys to John Adams information 
of his being chosen Vice President, 122. 

Boicdoin, James, Governor of Massachusetts, his family, 
ancient and distinguished, 8. The Marquis de Chas- 
tellux takes tea with the familly, 8, 9 ; and greatly 
admires the beautiful granddaughter of, 9. Miss Tem- 
ple brought up in the family of, 10, note. Is with 
Washington at the State House in Boston, 189. 
Washington dines at the house of, 192. 

Botnen, Mr., his exhibition of wax-work visited by Wash- 
ington and his family, 211. 

Bowling Green, New York City, display of fireworks at, 
on occasion of the evacuation of the city by the Brit- 
ish troops, 2. 

Boyle, Daniel, in the list of subscribers for the Philadel- 
phia city-dancing assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 

Boylsion, Nicholas, a full length portrait of, in the Philo- 
sopliy Room, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 193, note. 

Bradford family, of Philadelphia, the standing of, 12. 

, William, Attorney General of the U. S. (1795), 

856. Unites with Timothy Pickering and Oliver 
Wolcott, in a letter to Washington, 359. His intimacy 
with Washington's family, 391. Uncle of John Brad- 
ford Wallace, 366, note. His poem, the "Lament of 
Washington," 891, 892. His place of residence in 
Philadelphia, 891. Notices of, by Horace Binney 
Wallace, 354, note; by Daniel Webster, 866, note; 
and by Eichard Push, 394. 

• , Mrs. Willi.am, only child of Elias Boudinot, 338, 

839. The guest of Mrs. Susan Wallace, 394, 395. An 
intimate friend of Mrs. Washington, 893. Accounts 
of her, by Eichard Eush and Mrs. Wallace, 394, and 
note. 

Braintree, M.assachusetts, the place of residence of John 
Adams, 123, 170. 

Brand-IfoUis. Thomas, extract from a letter of Mrs. John 
Adams to, 169. 

Brant, or Thayendanegea, chief of the six nations of In- 
dians, a troublesome loader, 223, 224. 

Braye, Chevalier de, unites with the Cincinnati Society 
of Boston, in an address to Washington, 190. 

Breck, Mr. and Mrs., letter to, from Mrs. Church, 380. 

Brehan. Marchioness de, sister of the Count de Moustier, 
92, 93. In the " Invitation List " of Mrs. Jay, 99, note. 
At the Inauguration Ball (May '89), 156. Her taste 
displayed at the illumination on the occasion, 145. 
Pays her respects to Mrs. Washington, 164. Her 
portraits of Washington, 68, 853. :Mr. Jefferson's 
complimentary letter to, 98. Complimentaiy de- 
scription of her by General Armstrong, 93. 
Brevoort, Nicholas, marries Miss Blair, 104. 
Briseot (M.) de Warvillej account of his journey between 



New York and Philadelphia, 117. His adventnrea 
from Boston to New York, 117, 118. His favorable 
opinion of American inns, 118 ; and American packet- 
boats, 118, note. His anecdote of Count de Moustier 
and President Griffin, 38, note. His publications, 84, 
note. His controversies with de Moustier and Chas- 
tellux, 85. Lafayette's opinion of, 85, note. Wash- 
ington's remark on, 84. His ideas of fashionable life 
in Philadelphia, 85. Describes Cyrus Griffin and his 
family, 90. His account of domestic life at Mount 
Vernon, 161. His remarks on the character and 
dress of the ladies at Philadelphia, and of the Qua- 
keresses in particular, 268. Describes the social 
characteristics of New York, 86 — 88; dress, equi- 
pages, luxury, bachelors, tea, fruit, 87; fish, hair- 
dressers, and clothes-washing, 88; cheating, and ex- 
pense of living, 88 ; fees of lawyers and physicians, 
89. Dines at Mr. Jay's, 90; list of guests on the occa- 
sion, 91. His favorable opinion of Jay, Madison, and 
others, 89. Dines at Alexander Hamilton's, and 
describes Mrs. H., 89. His amusing description of 
cigar-smoking, 87. Notice of, 84, 85. 

British Army, evacuation of New York by, 2. 

, Officers, many of them marry American women, 4 

note. 

Brittan, Thomas, his portrait by Woolaston, In the British 
Museum, 159, note. 

Branson, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's "Invitation List," 93, note. 

Brooks, General, his salute to Washington at Cambridge. 
187. 

Brooklyn Ferry. See Kew York City. 

Brotherson, Mrs., in the list of " belles and dames " at 
Philadelphia, in 1757, 13. 

Brougham, Lord, his account of Charles Carroll and his 
ftimily, 208, note. His remarks on Talleyrand as a 
writer, 438. 

Brown, Charles Brockdcn, his striking picture of the 
yellow fever at Philadelphia, in 1793, 870, note. 
; John, a member of Congress, his place of residence 



at New York in 1789, 166, note. 

Broiim\s Coffee House, Savannah, Washington dines there 
with tie city authorities, 337. 

Browne, Miss, in Mrs. Jay's " Invitation List," 98, note. 

Bruce, Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's "Invitation List," 98, note. 

Buchan, Earl of, introduces Eobertson, the artist, to 
Washington, 410; and sends to Washington a box re- 
ceived from the Goldsmiths' Companj', 410. 

Buchanan family, of New York, one of the Whig familiaa 
of the city, 81, notef. 

Buckminater, Rev. Dr. Joseph, of Boston, Washington 
attends public worship at the church of, 196. The 
father of Mrs. Lee, who was his biographer, 196k 

Bunker's Hotel, New York, formerly owned by Mr. Mc- 
Comb, and occupied by Washington. 168. 

Burd, frames, in the list of subscribers to the Philadel- 
phia dancing assembly, 1748, 13, note. Mrs. B. in the 
list of Philadelphia " belles and dames," 1757, 13, note. 

Burgoyne, General, principal scenes of the misfortunes 
of, 840. 

Burke, Edanus, of South Carolina, member of Congress, 
his place of residence at New York, 167, note. 

Burr, AaroT), in Mrs. Jay's "Invitation List," 98, note. 
One of the attorneys of the Supreme Court in the 
city of New York, in 1789, 175. Marries Mrs. Pre- 
vost, the widow of a British officer, 174. His warm 
attachment to her, and hers to him, 174, 175. His 
profligacy, 174. His friend Davis gives an account of 
his intrigues, 174, note. His personal appearance, 
175. Lives in style in Philadelphia, where he gives 
entertainments to politicians, 895. 

Bush Hill, the residence of John Adams near Philadel- 
phia, 106, 249. 



INDEX 



461 



Butler family, standing of the, at Pliiladelphia, 160, note. 

• , Pierce, of South Carolina, United States Senator, 

his place of residence at New York, 166, note. He 
and his wife and daughters in the " Invitation List " 
of Mrs. Jay, 9S, note. "With Washington, at Charles- 
ton and Savannah, 835, 336. 

Byrd, Colonel William, of Westover, Virginia, son-in-law 
of Charles Willing, of Philadelphia, 15. His place of 
residence, 294, 298. 

Byron, Lord, his tribute to Washington, 249. 



Cabinet, formation of Washington's, a matter of the deep- 
est personal interest to him, ISO. 

CadwaUader, Lambert, of New Jersey, member of Con- 
gress, his residence at New York, 1G6, note. In the 
" Invitation List " of Mrs. Jay, 98, note, 

Caermarihen, Marquis of (afterward Duke of Leeds), 
marries the widow of Colonel Harvey, 209, note,*. 

Cairnie, Miss Isabella, in the list of " belles and dames," 
at Philadelphia, in 175T, 13, note. 

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Washington's reception at, 
186, 193. Description of the Philosophy Room at, 
193, note. 

, England, young men of America scholars at, at the 

beginning of the Eevolution, 7. 

Camden, South Carolina, Washington's visit to, S3S. 

Campan, Madame, one of the sisters of Genet, 351, note. 

Cape Fear Eiver,ool. 

Capfigue, M., his remarks on honest politicians, 423, 424. 

Cards, tho fashionable evening amusement in New Eng- 
land, in 17S7, 46. 

Carey, Matthew, honorably conspicuous (1793) in Phila- 
delphia during the prevalence of the yellow fever, 
870, note. 

Caricatures, of Washington, 123, note; and of Robert 
Morris, 284. 

Carr, Mrs., aunt of Martha Jeiferson, 219. 

Carriages, and coaches, Washington's, 330, note, 365, 366. 

Carrington, Col., in Mrs. Jay's "Invitation List," 99, 
note. 

Carroll, Charles, of Maryland, Senator of the United 
States, 119. Member of the Committee of Arrange- 
•ments for Washington's Inauguration, 139. His 
family, 209. Hia place of residence in New York, 
166, note. Biographical notice of, 203. 

, Mrs. Charles, jun., daughter of Benjamin Chew of 
Philadelphia, 895. Sister of Mrs. Philips, 395. A 
great favorite with Washington, 395. Now (October, 
1854,) living, 39.5. 

, Daniel, of Maryland, hia place of residence in New 
York, 166, note. 

; Polly, marries (November, 1786,) Eichard Caton, 
104, 209. Washington's admiration of, 210. 

CarroUton, Maryland, the family residenco of Charles 
Carroll, 208, 7ioie. 

Caton, Eichard, marries (November, 1786,) Polly Carroll, 
104, 209. Three of his daughters married to British 
noblemen, 209. 

C^racchi, Giuseppe, sculptor, visits America, 410. His 
bust of Washington, 410. His design for a monument 
of the American Eevolution, 410. Attempts to assas' 
sinato Napoleon, and is put to death, 410. 

Chancellor, family, of Philadelphia, its antiquity, 12. 

Charles River, 19.3. 

Charleston, South Carolina, Washington visits, 83.3, 836. 
Corporation ball (1791) at, 334. Celebration of his 
birth-day, 217. Eeception of Genet at, 292. State of 
society in, 332, 33G. City Hall of, 279. Merchants' 
Exchange, 836. St. Cecilia Society, 279. 



Charlestoicn Heights, Massachusetts, 193. 

Charlotte, North Carolina, Washington at, 838. 

Charlton, Dr. and Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's "Invitation List," 
98, note. 

Chastellux, Francis Jean, Marquis de. Major General un 
der Eochambeau, 9, note. Grandson of d'Aguesseau. 
160. His description of Washington's personal ap' 
pearance, 872. His description of Mrs. Washington, 
260. Dines at Mr. Break's, at Boston, with Vaudreuil. 
9 ; and there meets with the accomplished Mrs. TU' 
dor, 9. His admiration of the granddaughter of Mr. 
Bowdoin, 9. His account of social life in Boston, 9. 
His admiration of the women of Philadelphia, 291, 
His remark on Lady Temple, 94. His marriage, 9, 
note. Washington's playful letter to him on the oc- 
casion, 9, Tiote. His account of American inns, 118, 
His remarks on frequent eating in America, and on 
card-playing, 10. His criticisms of American man 
ners, 484. His writings, 9, note. Biographical notice 
of, 9, note. 

Chateaubriand. M., nephew of Malesherbes, visits (1790) 
the U. 8., 878. His tour in this country suggests his 
greatest works, 378. 

Chatham, Earl of, a portrait of him in the Philosophy 
Eoom at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 193, note. 

Chaumont, M., in Mrs. Jay's "Invitation List," 99, note. 

Chesterfield, Lord, Mrs. Warren's criticism of, 200, note. 

Chew, Benjamin, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, high 
standing of the family of, 12, 294, 828. Eochefoacauld, 
an intimate friend of, 385. His baronial house at Ger- 
mantown, 395. His residence in Philadelphia, 15. 
His daughter Peggy marries John Eager Howard, 
395, 482; Sophia marries Henry Philips, 895; and 
Harriet marries Charles Carroll, 411, note. 

, Mrs. one of the elite of Philadelphia, 23. 

, The misses, at Mrs. Washington's first levee at 

Philadelphia, 826. 

, Sophia, portrait of, by Trumbull, 414. Marries 

Henry Philips, 895. 

, Harriet, portrait of, by Trumbull, 410. Accom- 
panies Washington several times while he sits for his 
portrait by Stuart, 411, note. Marries Charles Car* 
roll, 411, n^te. 

Cliilds <& Swaine, printers of the Daily Advertiser, at 
New York, 234. 

C^irist Church, Philadelphia, 237. The bell of, chimed at 
the reception of Genet, 349. Washington regularly 
worshipped at, 366. 

Church, Mr., dines with General Knox, 97. 

, Mrs., daughter of General Schuyler, and sister of 

Mrs. Hamilton, 380. Gives Talleyrand and Beaumet 
a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Breck, 880. 

Church of England, the proprietory descendants of Wil- 
liam Penn return to the, 12. 

Church street, Charleston, Washington's place of resi- 
dence in, 335, note. 

Cigar, the, described by M. Brissot, 87. Its moral and 
social effects, 87. 

alley. General, his reception of Washington at Ports- 
mouth, 196. 

Cimetiere, M. Du, a Genevan artist, an'ives (1760) at Phil- 
adelphia, 408. Washington's opinion of, 408. Takes 
portraits of Gates, Steuben, and others, 408. 

Cincinnati Society, honor Washington, 177, 178, 191, 228, 
383, 886. Wear mourning for Franklin, 222. Wash- 
ington dines with, at Charleston, S37. 

Circus. See Ricketts. 

Ciiess, marriages announced in the democractic papers of 
Genet's day as partnerships between a citizen and a, 
850. 

Citizen, the title introduced by Jacobins from Franco. 
350. 



462 



INDEX. 



City nail of New York, 29, 119. Eenovated and called 
Federal Hall, 120. 

■ of Charleston, 335. 

City Tavern, New York, kept by Samuel Fraunces, 14S, 
note^ 178. The place where Washington took leave 
(Dec. 4, 1783) of the officers of the American army, 
148, note. The place where the " Social Club" met, 
148, note. 

• , Philadelphia, 350. 

Clark, Mr., of Philadelphia, the builder of Washington's 
carriage for six horses, 330. 

Clarkson family, of New York, the residence of, 80. 

, Freeman, General, Levinus, and Stratford, in Mrs. 

Jay's "Invitation List," 98, note. 

, Thomas, honorably conspicuous (1793) in Philadel- 
phia, 870, note. 

Clamere, M., the friend of Brissot, 86. 

Clergy, (jf Boston, address Washington, 190. Of New 
York, list of, in 1789, 1.38, note. Of Philadelphia, lOS. 
Some of the, epicures, 213. 

Clifften, Miss Betty, one of the belles of Philadelphia, in 
1757, 13. 

Clinton, George, Governor of New York, the high stand- 
ing of his family, 203. Description of Mrs. C. and her 
daughters, by Mrs. Smith, 95. In Mrs. Jay's '' Invi- 
tation List," 93, note. Is waited on by John Q. 
Adams, 78. Is with Washington at dinner, 2, 133, 
134, 164, 228 ; at the theatre, 159 ; and at Col. Bau- 
man's military review, 211. Enters New York, in 
company with Washington, when it was evacuated 
(1788) by the British troops, 2. Gives public dinnere 
on the occasion, 2. Accompanies Washington to 
Khode Island, 227; and on the way to Philadelphia, 
229. His anecdote of Baron Steuben and the Doctors' 
Mob, 102, note*. With Washington proposes to buy 
Saratoga Springs, 85. Notice of, 94, 95. 

, Mrs. George, at the Inauguration Ball, 156. Pays 
her respects to Mrs. Washington, 164. Is at Wash- 
ington's last public dinner in New York, 228. 

, Cornelia Tappan, daughter of Governor, marries 

M. Genet, .351. 
-, General James, in Mrs. Jay's " Invitation List," 



98, note. 

— — , De Witt, Governor of New York, marries a 
daughter of Walter Franklin, 82, note't. 

CIo^kI, Eev. Mr., of the Methodist Church, one of the re- 
sident clergymen of New York, in 1789, 138, note. 

CM). See Tuesday Evening Club; Moot; and Social 
Club. 

Clymer, family, its high standing at Philadelphia, 294, 
328. 

, George, member of Congress from Pennsylvania, 
58, 166, note. His place of residence in New York, in 
1789, 166, note. Brother-in-law of Mr. Willing, 293. 
Character and personal appearance of, 58. 

, Mrs., one of the fashionable dames (1757) of Phila- 
delphia, 1.3. 

Coblett, William, in America, in 1794, the writings of, 
879. Assumes the name of Peter Porcupine, 379. 
Opposes the French interest in the U. S., 379. 

Cochrane, Sir Francis, son of Lord Dundonald, 81. 

Colden, Mr. and Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's " Invitation List," 98, 
note. 

, Captain, salutes Washington, at Boston, 193. 

Coles, Isaac, member of Congress from Virginia, his place 
of residence in New York, 166, note. 

Collect. See Kolch. 

College, Columbia. See Columbia College. 

, King's (n«w Columbia), its condition in 1783, 81. 

of New Jersey. See Ifassau Hall. 

Colonieis, American, political condition of, in 1783, 87. 
Franklin's measures (1754, 1775), for a union o^ 88. 



Their unparalleled advance in population and proa> 
perity, 6, 7. 

Columbia, South Carolina, visited by Washington, 338. 

College, New York, 176, and note. Washington 

and Adams at the commencement of. May 6, 1789, 
168. 

, District of See District of Columbia. 

.Columbian Magazine, notices Miss Mary Leech, 105. 

Order. See Tammany Society. 

Columbus, Vision of See Barloic. 

Concerts of Music, encouraged (1787) in Boston, 46. 

Concert Hall, at Boston, 192. . 

Condorcet, M., his oration on Franklin, 223. 

Confederattvn ut the United States, Dr. Franklin's (1754) 
plan, 38. His Articles, 88. Secrecy in relation to 
them, 89, 40. Articles of, adopted, 40. Account of 
them, 40, 42. Virginia proposes, 43. Commissioners 
at Annapolis, 4.3. See Constitution of the U. S. 

Congress, American, measures of, for a confederation, 88. 
Declaration of American Independence, 89. Secret 
deIiber.atiou on the Articles of Confederation, 89. 
Adopts (Nov. 1777) the Articles, 40. Limited powers 
of, in 1777, 41. Orders (1783) the disbanding of the 
army, 1. Farewell to, by Washington as commander- 
in-chief, 5. Adjourns (Oct. 1783) from Philadelphia 
to Princeton, 2.31 ; and then to New York (1785), 78. 
State of, in the winter of 1788, 1789, 113. Observa- 
tions on the members of, 74, 75. Mirabeau calls them 
a company of demigods, 75. Eulogiums on them, by , 
AVilliara Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 75, 76. Measures of, 
to restore the national credit, 42. 

of the United States, slow in assembling, 114, 216. 



Causes of this, 114, 115. Warm discussion on the sub- 
ject of titles, 152. Place of meeting in New York, 119. 
Char.acter of the members of, 119. Prepare to receive 
the President and Vice President, 123. Debates of, in 
1790 and 1791, 329. Consider the subject of a national 
bank, 329 ; and of a tax on ardent spirits, 829. Take 
measures (1789) for transmitting the mail, by stage- 
wagons, 117, note. Request the President to appoint 
a day of religious thanksgiving, 181. Washington's 
address to (179-3), on the occasion of his re-election aa 
President, 34-3. Richard Rush's account of the open- 
ing of, by Washington, 367. Mourning for the mother 
of Washington, 180 ; and for Dr. Franklin, 222. 

Connecticut, ratifies the Constitution (1778), 165. Oliver 
Wolcott, Governor of, 204. 

Conogocheague, the former name of the District of Cohim 
bia, 232. Described in satirical verses by Frcnea^^ 
237. 

Constable, Mr., in the Invitation List of Mrs. Jay, 98, not«. 

Constitution of the United States, early measures loading 
to its adoption, 43, 44. Character of the framers of, 44, 
45. Kem.arks on, by Hamilton and Franklin, 77. 
Ratified before (July 1st, 17SS), by Delaware, Penn- 
sylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massa- 
chusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire,- 
and Virginia, 105. The ratification of, celebrated at 
Baltimore, 105 ; Philadelphia, 106—108 ; New York, 
109. 

Coniee, Benjamin, Member of Congress from Maryland, 
his place of residence in New York, 166, note. 

Continental Congress. See Congress, American. 

Convention of the States, first measure for, by Virginia, 
43. First meeting of Commissioners, 48, 44. Sea 
Constitution. 

Conveyances, public, account of, 117, note. 

Conyngham, R., a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

family, its standing in Philadelphia, 12. 

Cooper, Eev. Thomas, of Boston, called "the silver- 
tongued orator," a. 



INDEX. 



463 



Cooper, Dr. Thomas, in America, in 1794, 879. Intimate 
friend of Dr. Priestley, SSO. Partisan of Brissot, 380. 
Settles in Northumberland, 380. 

Copley, John Singleton, artist, 407. Paintings by, in the 
Philosophy Koom at Cambridge, 193, note. His pic- 
ture of Mr. and Mrs. Izard, 172 ; and of Mrs. Hancock, 
192, note. His works commended, 407. 

, John Singleton, (Lord Lyndhurst,) son of the 

artist, 8. Is present at a dinner given by Louis Phi- 
lippe, at Philadelphia, 386. His personal appearance, 
387. 

Corbit, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 98, note. 
' Cornell family, of New York, place of residence in the 
city, 83, note. 

Cornwallis, Lord, the plains where Gates was engaged 
by, 338. 

Cortlandt family, in New York, baronial rank of, 203. 

Coster family, residence of, at New York, 30, note. 

Costume in America, described by Chastellux, 434 ; and 
by Wansey, 374. Of ladies, in 1789, 155, note. Ladies 
at Boston, 192 ; at Charleston, 832, 834, 335, note. Ball 
dresses of ladies, 155, 158, 408. Gentlemen, 46, 47, 158, 
a32. Judges, 47. Postilions, 160. Changes in the 
old costume, first made at Boston, 332. 

Cotillions, date of their introduction, 47. 

Cottenham, John, subscribe-r for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 

Court House, Boston, 194. 

Supreme, in New England, winter costume of the 

Judges, 47 ; summer costume, 47. 

Coxe, Mr. and Mrs., dine with Washington, at Philadel- 
phia, 3SS. 

Cosine, John, a distinguished lawyer of New York, 110. 

Coszens family, of Philadelphia, 13, note. William, a sub- 
scriber to the Philadelphia dancing assembly, in 1748, 
13, note. 

Crawford, Mr., British consul at New York, his place of 
residence, 32, note *. Marries the widow of Eobert C. 
Livingston, 82, note *. 

Creek Indians, 224. Visit the painting room of CoL John 
Trumbull, 225. 

Crevecceur, M. de, 210. French Consul at New York, 94, 
note*. M. Otto marries the daughter of, 94, note*. 
Notice of, 87, note. 

Crown Point, visited by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, 
840. 

Crtiger family, of New York, their place of residence, 31, 
note *. Henry, in the Invitation List of Mrs. Jay, 98, 
note. Nicholas, 110. 

Cushing family, of Boston, ancient and distinguished, 8. 

, William, Judge of the Supreme Court of the U. S., 

181. At Washington's farewell dinner, 418. AtAdams"s 
inauguration, 419. 

, Mrs., wife of Judge C, her account of dining with 

the President, 883. Her diary, 331, note. Mrs. Pinck- 
ney's letter to, 887, note. Mention of Gilbert Stuart, 
by, 411. Notice of, 387, note. 

Cusiis, Mrs. Daniel Parke, Woolaston's portrait of, 159, 
note. Her attractions, 160. See Washington, Mrs. 

, Eleanor, granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, 161, 

869. Goes with her (May, 1789) to New York, 161 ; 
and from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon, 421. Her 
practising on the harpsichord, 870 ; Mrs. Adams pro- 
poses that Josiah Quincy shall pay his addresses to her 
or her sister, 401. Marries Lawrence Lewis, Wash- 
ington's nephew, 421. Trumbull's portrait of, 410. 
Madame Frere very intimate with, .388. 

— , George Washington Parke, grandson of Mrs. Wash- 
ington, 161, 309. Schoolfellow of William A. Duer, 212, 
note. Attends Mrs. Washington (May, 17S9) to New 
York, 161, 162. Ills account of Washington's farewell 
to New York, 229, note. With Washington on his 



retiring from Philadelphia to Mount Vernon, 421. 
His list of the intimate friends of Mrs. Washington, 
393. His opinion of the merits of Woolaston, as an 
artist, 159, note. 
Cuyler, Miss, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 98, note. 



D. 



Daily Advertiser, a New York journal, 844. 

Dallas family, of Philadelphia, one of position, 828. 

, Eittenhouse, and Duponceau, their address to 

Genet, 849. 

Dalton, Tristram, of Massachusetts, U. S. Senator, 189. 
One of the Committee of Arrangements at Washing- 
ton's Inauguration, 139. His place of residence in 
New York, 166, note. 

, Mrs. Tristram, 156, 161 

Dana family, of Boston, ancient and distinguished, 8. 

, Francis, American Minister to Russia, 78. 

, Eev. Dr. James, a Congregational minister, of New 

Haven, 184. 

, the beautiful Miss, niece of Francis, glowing de- 
scription of, by Mrs. Adams, 296. 

Dancing Assembly, list of subscribers for (1748) in Phila- 
delphia, 13, 7iote. 

, fashionable (1787) in New England, 46. Style of, 

at that period, 47. At Philadelphia, 327 ; described 
by Chastellux, 434. At Charleston, 333. Eendered 
significant of the union of France and America, 158. 
See Cotillions and Minuet. 

Dandridge, Miss Martha, afterwards Mrs. Washington, 
159. 

Dane, Nathan, of Massachusetts, Member of Congress, 78. 
In Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 91, 99, note. 

Darly, a village near Philadelphia, Mrs. Washington's 
reception at, 162. 

Darley, Mr., a player at Philadelphia, 371. 

Daulieny, Mrs., of New York, her fashionable boarding- 
house in Wall street, 31, note t. 

Dauphin of France, birth-day of, celebrated at Philadel- 
phia, 19. Dr. Bush's description of the celebration, 19. 

Davey, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia " dames," in 1757, 13. 

Davie, William Eichardson, of North Carolina, 69. Char- 
acter, history, and personal appearance of, 69. Mili- 
tary exploits of, 70. 

Davix, Matthew L., his account of Aaron Burr's profligacy, 
174, note. 

, Miss Eebecca, one of the Philadelphia "belles," in 

1757, 13. 

Dawes, Judge, of Boston, his triumphal arch in honor erf 
Washington, 188. 

Deane, Silas, American Minister to France, 172. 

Declaration of Didependence. See Independence. 

De Ealh, Baron, the grave of, visited by Washington, 338. 

De Lancey family, of New York, 16, 203. Mrs. Izard, of 
South Carolina, a member of, 172. 

, General Oliver, of the British army, marries Phila, 

daughter of David Franks, 26. Charlotte, 25. 

, Stephen, of New Yoi'k, member of "The Moot" 

club, 148, note. 

Delaware, State of, sends commissioners to Annapolis, 43. 
Eatifies (1788) the Constitution of the U. S. 105. 

Del Campo, M., of Spain, dines at Mr. Jay's, 90. 

Delia Crusca (Mr. Merry), 406. Driven from England, 
406. Mrs. Morton's verses on, 407. 

Democrats, and Democratic Societies, 100, note, 350, 853, 
354, 855, 862, 369. Object to Mrs. Washington's draw- 
ing-rooms, 369. Her opinion of, 160, note, 369, 370. 

Dennie, Joseph, of Philadelphia, a companion of Moore 
the poet, 162, note. 

Denning family, of New York, their residence, 31, notei. 



464 



INDEX 



De Peysier family, of New York, their residence, 31, 
note * 

, Frederic and Miss, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 

99, note. 

Devonshire, Duchess of, Mrs. Adams's opinion of the 
beauty of, 295. 

Dick, Miss Molly, one of the Philadelphia "belles," in 
1T57, 13. 

Dickinson, Governor John, delegate from Delaware to 
the "Convention," 59. Opposed (1776) to the Decla- 
ration of Independence, 60. At the festival in honor 
of the Dauphin, 21. Converses with Washington, 21. 
Miss Vinings letter, (17S3) to, 22. Eis -writings, 59. 
Character and personal appearance of, 60. 

Dietetics in America, Volney's remarks on, 4^39, 440. 

Dinner-parties, Wednesday, given by Washington, 217. 

Directory, New York (17S9), contains 96 small pages, 175. 

ZHstrict of Columhia, 233. 

Doctors'' Mob, in New York, the wounds of Mr. Jay and 
Baron Steuben, by the, 102, note. 

Dolgreen, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia "dames," in 1757, 
13. 

Dolohran, the Lloyds of Philadelphia descended from the 
ancient house of, 11. 

Domestic goods, the manufacture of, patronized by Wash- 
ington, 101. 

Dorchester, Massachusetts, Ilerrry Wolcott resides (1630) 
there, 204. 

Doicse, Mr., in Mrs. Jay"s Invitation List, 99, note. 

Drama, general opposition to (17S9), 211. Intellectual 
and moral influence of the, 212. Attended by Wash- 
ington, 212. 

Draper, Sir William, his lines in Latin, In the vestibule 
of Governor Tryon's palace at Newbern, 831, note. 

Dress. See Costume. 

Drunkenness, Dr. Eamsay's account of its prevalence in 
Clharleston, 832, 333. 

Duane, James, distinguished lawyer, 175. Member of 
" The Moot " club, 148, note. At the festival in honor 
of the Dauphin, 21. His wife and daughter in the 
"Invitation Li.>t'' <if Mrs. Jay, 99, note. Mrs. D. at 
the Inauguration Ball, 150. 

Duche, Pev. Dr., returns to America, in 1793, 378. 

Duels, very frequently occurred in South Carolina, 832. 

Jhier, William Alexander, LL. D., President of Columbia 
College, son of Colonel William D., 27. Brother of 
Judge John D., 27. His recollections of New York, 
27-83. Present at Adams's in.auguration, 419; and 
describes it, 419. Account of his dramatic perform- 
ance before Washington, 212, note. 

■ , Colonel William, marries Katherine Alexander, 

daughter of Lord Stirling, 27. Brissot's admiration 
of, 89. In Mrs. Jay's " Invitation List," 99, note. His 
place of residence in New York, 82, note *. 

, Lady Kitty, daughter of Lord Stirling, 79. In Mrs. 
Jay's " Invitation List," 99, note. Attends the Inaugu- 
ration Ball. 156. Dines at General Knox's, 79. Pays 
her compliments to Mrs. Washington, 164. Stanches 
Baron Steuben's wound received in the Doctors' Mob, 
102, note*. Her personal appearance described by 
John Quincy Adams, 79. 

Duke of Orleans. See Louis PhiJippe. 

Dulaney family, of Maryland, loyalists, 16. 

Dumas, Count Mathiou, his description of Washington's 
personal appearance, 427. 

Dunhip, William, artist, his portrait of Washington, 408. 
His mention of Woolaston, 159, note. Takes part in 
the "Constitution celebration," (1788), 110. His suc- 
cess as a dramatic writer, 214. 

Vmimore, Lord, the period when he left America, 207. 

Duponceau, Peter S., 267. Marries Anne Perry, 105. Is 
Secretary of a secret society of Frenchmen, S48. 



Unites with Dallas and Eittenhouse, in preparing an 
Address to Genet, 349. 

Dupont, M., Secretary to the French Legation, 385. His 
wife, 885. 

DutcJi, The, brought to New York the custom of New 
Year's calls, 214. 

Dutch Church, in Garden street. New York, the oldest 
church in the city, 30, note. 

, in Philadelphia, described as "magnificent," 2.37. 

Duyckinck family, of New York, residence of, 80, note. 
Mr. E. A. D., mentioned, 835, note. 

Duight, Eev. Dr. Timothy, 206. His letter to Oliver 
Wolcott, relative to the scurrilous attacks on Wash- 
ington, 844. A guest of Oliver Wolcott's, 400. 



E. 



Edgar, Mrs., of New York, 164. Presents a " suit of col- 
ors " to Commodore Nicholson, 111. 

Eccleston, Mr., of Virginia, an amateur statuary, his bust 
of Washington, 412. 

EdinTjurgh, L'niversity of, young Americans become 
students at, 7. 

Edwards, Eev. Dr. Jonathan, 184. 

Edwin, the engi-aver, engraves Savage's portrait of Wash- 
ington, 409. 

Effingham family of New York, residence of, 33, note. 

Eliot. Miss Sally, marries Thomas H. Perkins, 104. 

Elizahethtown Point, 130. 

Elliot, Andrew, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

Ellis, Miss Patty, one of the Philadelphia "belles," in 
1757, 13. 

EllsiDorih, Oliver, Chief Justice, delegate from Connec- 
ticut to the " Convention," 51. Senator of the New 
Congress, 119. His place of residence in New York, 
106, note. Guest of Oliver Wolcott, 399. His letter 
to Wolcott, on the cost of living in New York, 200. 
Is present at Adams's inauguration, 419. His stories 
of Dr. Perkins, 403. Character and personal appear- 
ance of, 51, 52. 

Elmer, Jonathan, of New Jersey, Senator of TJ. S., his 
place of residence in New York, 166, note. 

Emhree family, of New York, residence of, 3.3, note. 

Enfant, Major 1', architect, arranges the proceedings at 
the " Constitution celebration," 109. Association of 
his name with Federal H.ill, wiUi the residence of 
Eobert Morris, and with the plan of the City of Wash- 
ington, 109, note. 

Eppes, John W, Marries a daughter of Thomas Jeffer- 
son, 218, 219. 

Erskine, Lord, his speech in the case of Williams against 
Faulder, 406. His tribute to Washington, 430. 

Eton College, England, young Americans educated at, 7. 

Evacuation, of the city of New York (1783) by the British 
troops, 2. Celebration of the event, 2. Description 
of, by an American officer, .3, note*. 

Ewing, Eev. Dr. John, Provost of the University of Penn- 
sylvania, 206. 

Excellency, a proposed title of the Chief Magistrate of 
the U. S., 152. 



Fairfax family, of Virginia, loyalists, 16. 

Eairlie, Major, his residence in New York, 82, note*. 

Fans from Paris, with medallion portraits of Washing- 
ton, 156. 

Fanueil Eall, Boston, 191, 412. Cont.ains a full-longth 
portrait of Washington, by Stuart, 412. 

Fauchet, M. Jean Antoine Joseph (afterward Baron), sue- 



INDEX 



465 



ceeds M. Genet, as Minister from France, 8S-1. Notice 

of, by Adams, 3S-t, 885. His remarks on the Western 

Insurrection, 355. His famous recovered letters, 353. 

Is superseded by M. Adet, 300. The Abbe, his eulogy 

on Franklin, 223. 
Federal Government, limited powers of, in 1777, 41, 42. 

Washington's remarks on the subject, 42. 
Hall, New York, 216, 225. Particular description 

of, 120, 121, 122. Major TEnfant, the architect of, 

121. 
Federalists, 852, 853, 855. Charges against, 806. Their 

social characteristics, 898. 
Federalist, The, a series of Essays, by Hamilton, Jay, 

and Madison, 113. 
• , a miniature ship, presented to Washington, 105, 

note. 
Fennell, James, a player, at Philadelphia, 315. Dunlap's 

account of, 372. 
Fenno, editor of the " Gazette," at New York, his account 

of the President's reception, 134. His observations 

on Washington's household economy, 149, note. 
Fergtison, Mrs., of Philadelphia, a poetess, 405. Her MS. 

writings, 40.5. 
Fessenden, his "Terrible Tractoration " mentioned, 403. 
Few, Colonel William, of Georgia, Senator of U. S.. his 

place of residence in New York, 166, note. Dines 

with Washington, 164. Is in Mrs. Jay's Invitation 

List, 99, note. His playful vindication of himself, for 

marrying, 103. 
Field Book of the Revolution, Mi'. Lossing's, contains an 

engraving of Governor Tryon's residence, 831, note. 
Fireworks, display of, at the celebration of the evacuation 

of New York by the British troops, 2. 
Fish, Major Nicholas, took part in the " Constitution 

celebration," 110. 
Fishbourn, Miss Sally, one of the Philadelphia " belles," 

in 1757, 13. 
Fisherman, the American, Talleyrand's description of, 

438. 
Fitzsimons, Thomas, of Pennsylvania, Member of Con- 
gress, his place of residence in New York, 166, note. 
Flat Lands, the foot-race of the grenadiers at, 26. 
FlecMer, N., his oration on Turenne, quoted, 330, note. 
Floyd, William, of New York, Member of Congress, his 

residence in the city, 166, note. 
Fluckner, Mr., Secretary, father of Mrs. General Knox, 

171. 
Force, Peter, of Washington City, Washington's Diary in 

possession of, 432. 
Foreigners, many of distinguished rank visit the U. S., 

from 1789 to 1797, 377. 
Forest, Monsieur and Madame de la, 99 note, 156, 164. 
Fort George, 81, 840. 

, Washington, 227. 

William, Henry, 840. 

Foster, Kev. Mr., Baptist minister in New York, in 1789, 

188, note. 

, Sally, marries Harrison Gray Otis, 393. 

Fouc, Charles James, his tribute to Washington, 430. 
France, profound interest of, in American affairs, 84. 

Alliance of, with the U. S., 217. Portraits of the 

King and Queen of, presented to Congress, by Louis 

XYL, 122. Declares war against Great Britain, 347. 
Francis family, of Philadelphia, its standing, 12, 294. 
, John, a subscriber to the Philadelphia dancing as- 
sembly, in 174S, 13. 
. , Mrs., and Misses Molly and Betty, among the 

Philadelphia " d.ames and belles," in 1757, 13. 

, Thomas Willing, son-in-law of Thomas Willing, 15, 

. , Dr. John W., 142. His interesting conversation 

with Freneau, 345. His memoir of Bishop Provoost, 

quoted, 176, note t. 

59 



Franklin, William, a subscriber for the Philadelphia danc- 
ing assembly, in 1748, 13. Mrs. F., one of the " dames " 
of Philadelphia, in 1757, 13. 

, Dr. Benjamin, delegate from Pennsylvania to the 

" Convention," 55. Iniluence of his negotiations on 
the destiny of the U. S., 87. His first pl.an for a union 
of the Colonies, 38. Submits to Congress the Arti- 
cles of Confederation, 83. One of the Signers of the 
Declaration of Independence, 56. His remark on the 
adoption of the Constitution, 77. Jefferson, the Suc- 
cessor of, as Minister to France, ISO. His grand- 
daughter marries Harwood, the player, 372. Miss 
Temple meets him at Governor Bowdoin's, 10. His 
lost manuscript, 219. His death and funeral, 221, and 
note. Tributes to him by Smith, Stiles, Mirabeau, 
Fauchet, and Condorcet, 222, 22-3. Mourning for, 222, 
228. Character and personal appearance of, 55, 56. 

, Temple, portrait of, by Trumbull, 410. 

, Walter, of New York, a member of the Society 

of Friends, 82, note t. His residence, 82, note f. One 
of his daughters marries De Witt Clinton, ib. 

Franks family, of Philadelphia, now represented in the 
female lines, 13, note *. 

Franks, David, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, 1748, 13. Mrs. D., ono of the Philadelphia 
" dames " in 1757, 13. 

, David, a rich Jewish merchant of Phil.adelphia, 

26. His daughter Phila marries General Oliver De 
Lancey, 26; Abigail marries Andrew Hamilton, 27; 
Kebecca marries General Sir Henry Johnson, 24; 
note, 27. Trumbull's mention of, 897. 

, Itebccca, (afterward Lady Johnson,) 203. Cele- 
brated for her wit, 22, 27. Her remarks on social life, 
in New York and Philadelphia, 22, 25. Account o^ 
26. 

Frazer, Charles, his "PkCminiscences of Charleston," 
quoted, 335, note. 

Fraunces, Samuel, of New York, called "Black Sam," 
147, note. His tavern in Broad Street, the place 
where Washington bid farewell to his officers, 2. His 
st.age-offlce, 117, note, Washington commends him, 
244 ; writes a letter to him, 149, note ; employs the 
daughter of, as a housekeeper, 147, note. 

Frederick of Prussia, sends a sword to Washington, 146. 

, Maryland, is visited by Washington, 339. 

Fredericksburgh, Yirgini.a, 179, 830. 

Free Masons, 111. 

French Citizens, many, driven to the U. S., by the French 
Eevolution, 877. Their influence, 877, 878. 

foshions. See Costume. 

Eevolution, reflections on, 845, 846, 852. Abolishes 

monarchy, .846. Avows atheism, 346. Drives many 
of the French people to the U. S., 877. Jefl'erson ap- 
proves of, 896. 

Squadron, salute Washington, ISS, 189, 19.5. 

Freneau, Philip, editor of the New York Daily Adver- 
tiser, 234, 344. A classmate of Madison, at Princeton 
college, 235, 344. His attacks on Washington, 345, 
849. The feelings attributed by him to Hugh Gaine, 
16. His ch.arge brought against the Philadelphia 
physicians, 870, note. His satire on the Journey to 
New York, 117. Captain of a schooner, 136. Hia 
part in the French Patriotic Society, 348. Mr. Jef- 
ferson's mention of, 340, note. Account of, by Dr. 
John W. Francis, 345. Notice of, 344. 

Frere, Chevalier, the Portuguese Minister, and Madame 
F., dine with Washington, 887. Account of Madame 
F., 887 ; and of her diamonds, 3SS. 

Fresh Water Fond. See Kolch. 

Frestel, M., tutor of George W. Lafayette, 390. 

Fulton, Eobert, his portrait of Washington, Ln 1782, 
408. 



466 



INDEX. 



Funerals, mode of conducting, in New England (1787), 

47. 
Furnell, Miss, one of the Philadelphia "belles," in 1757, 

13. 



G. 



Gadsden, Christopher, of South Carolina, a Eepresenta- 

tive in the Congress of 1765, 72. 
Gaine, Hugh, sign of the Bible and Crown, removes the 
royal emblem from his sign, 82. Feelings attributed 
to, by Freneau, 16. At the "Constitution celebra- 
tion" in New York, 110. 
Gainsborough, Thomas, portrait of Mrs. Izard, by, 172. 
Gale, George, of Maryland, Member of Congress, his 

place of residence in New York, 166, note. 
Galissoniere, Marquis and Marchioness de la, 190, 192. 
Gallatoay family, of Philadelphia, loyalists, 16. Mrs. G., 

much admired, 23. 
Galveston, The, a Spanish ship of war, its salutation of 

Washington, 132. 
GamUing, at Philadelphia, 827; and at Charleston, 883. 
Gardoquoi, Don Diego, Spanish Minister to the U. S., 7S, 
79. Dines with Washington, 164. Beautiful illumi- 
nation of his house, at the festival of the Inaugura- 
tion, 145, 146. Dines at Mr. Jay's, 92. In Mrs. Jay's 
Invitation List, 99, note. 
Garrick, a portrait of, painted by Pine, 408. 
Gates, General, escorts Washington to his hotel at An- 
napolis, 4. Eeminiscence of his engagement with 
Cornwallis, 388. Kosciusko, at the house of, 389. A 
portrait of, by Du Cimetiere, 408. 
General, the title by which Mrs. Washington spoke of 

her husband, 216. 
Genet, M., Minister of the French Eepublic, his recep- 
tion at Philadelphia, 848, 349. Address from the 
democrats to, 350. Is offended at seeing, at Washing- 
ton's house, the bust of Louis XVI., 850. Appeals 
from the government of the U. S. to the people, 351. 
Notice of him, and of his sisters, 851, note. Marries 
Cornelia Tappan Clinton, daughter of Governor Clin- 
ton, 351 ; and, afterward, marries a daughter of Mr. 
Osgood, the Postmaster-General, 852, note. Wash- 
ington complains of the conduct of, 351. lie is re- 
called, and M. Fauchet takes his place, 884. 
Gansevoort, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 
Gentlemen, American, style of dress of, in 17S0, 40. See 

Costume. 
George, Miss, (Mrs. Oldmixon,) a player, at Philadelphia, 

373. 
Georgetown, Washington's reception at, 126. 
Georgia, State of, opposed to the assumption of the State 
debts, 232. Washington's reception in, 337. Katifies 
(1788) the Constitution, 105. 
Gerard, M., Washington's farewell letter to, S3. 
Germantown, Pennsylvania, Washington's Bummer resi- 
dence there, in 1794, 871. 
Gerry, Elbridgo, of Massachusetts, delegate to the "Con- 
vention," 49. Member of the new Congress, 119. 
One of the Signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, 49. In Mrs. Jay's Invitation Lists, 91, 99, note. 
His place of residence in New York, 160, note. No- 
tice of, 49, 100, note. Mrs. G. pays her compliments 
to Mrs. Washington, 164. Notice of her, 100, note. 
Gibson, Chief Justice, his account of Washington's anger, 

kindled by Edmund Eandolph's " Vindication," 860. 
Gien, Viscount de Ponteves, French admiral, 189, and 

note. 
Giles, Major Aquila, of New York, takes part in the 
"Constitution colebr.ation," 110 



Giles, Mr., of Virginia, U. S. Senator, anecdote of hlno 
and Colonel Trumbull, 896, and note, 897. 

Gilman, Nicholas, of New Hampshire, Member of Con- 
gress, 166, note. Accompanies Washington to Ehode 
Island, 227. Dines with Mr. Jay, 91. Is in Mrs. Jay's 
Invitation List, 99, note. His place of residence in 
New York, 166, note. 

Girard, Stephen, honorably conspicuous in Philadelphia, 
in 1793, 370, note. 

Glover, General, Washington dines with, 194. 

God, the Providence of, recognized by Congress, 181 ; tho 
existence of, denied by the French Convention, 346. 

Godons, Thomas, a subscriber for the Philadelphia danc- 
ing assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 

Goodhue, Benjamin, of Massachusetts, Member of Con- 
gress, his place of residemce in New York, 166, note. 
Conducts Washington to the balcony of tho Stato 
House, at Boston, 194. 

Goodrich, Chauncey, marries the youngest sister of Oli- 
ver Wolcott, 400. 
■, Elizur, his letter introducing Eli Whitney to Oli- 



ver Wolcott, in 1794, 403. 
Gorham, Mr. and Miss, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 

note. 
Goidd, Edward, a New York merchant. Member of tho 

Social Club, 148, note. 
Gouverneur, Mr., of New York, in Mrs. Jay's Invita- 
tion List, 99, note. 
Gray's Ferry, a place of fashionable resort near Phila- 
delphia, Rochefoucauld's description of, 162, note. 
Verses on, 162, note. Reception of Genet at, 348. 
Graydon, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia "belles," in 1757, 

13. 
Grayson, Mr. and Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. 

, Willi.am, of Virginia, Senator of tha U. S., his 

■ jdace of residence in New York, 166, note. 
Greame, Mrs. and Miss Jeany, among the Philadelphia 

"dames and belles," in 1757, 13. 
Great Britain, Franco declares war against, 292. Mr. 

Jay's treaty with, 357. 
Green, Rev. Dr. Ashbel, one of the Chaplains of Con- 
gress, at Dr. Shippen's, when the subject of the Pres- 
ident's title w.as discussed, 153. .His anecdote of 
Washington, in relation to the removal of the seat of 
Government, 234 ; and to the excitement caused by 
Mr. Jay's treaty, 362. 
Greene, General Nathaniel, Alexander Hamilton's ora- 
tion on the life and character of, 178. Hobkirk Hill, 
where Lord Rawdon attacked, visited by Washington, 
333. Washington dines with Mrs. G., 333. 
Greenleaf, Miss, marries Noah Webster, 104. 

, Mrs., (formerly Miss Allen of Philadelphia,) .326. 

, the republican printer, place of his office, in New 

York, 82, note. 
Grenville, Lord, his despatches, rel.ativo to Fauchet and 

Randolph, 858. 
Griffin, Cyrus, President (1787) of Congress, 82. His 
place of residence in New York, 166, note. His din- 
ner-parties, 96. Brissot's anecdote of, 83, note; and 
description of him and his family, 90. 

, Lady Christian.!, 92, 97, 156, 164. 

■, David, one of tho Commissioners to settle the dif- 



ficulties with the Creek confederacy, 224. 
GiHswold, Roger, a guest of Oliver Woleott, 390. 
Gros.i, Rev. Mr., of the German Church in the city of 

New York, in 1789, 138, note. 
Grout, Jonathan, of Massachusetts, Member of Congress, 

his place of residence in New York. 166, note. 
Gueat, Mr., his fashionable shop at Philadelphia, 324, 

note. 
Guilford, North Carolina, visited by Washington, »)«. 



INDEX. 



467 



Oullagher, Mr., of Boston, sculptor, his bust of Washing- 
ton, 412. 

Chmn, James, of Georgia, U. S. Senator, Ms place of resi- 
dence in New York, 166, note. 

G-ustavus III, Genet (at the age of 1"2 years) receives a 
gold medal and flattering letter from, 351, note. 



H. 



Buckley family, at Philadelphia, its high standing, 12. 

Sail Columbia, the national song, composed by Judge 
Hopkinson, 393. 

BaZl, Susan, cousin of Dr. Kush, at the festival in honor 
of the Dauplvin, 20. 

ffallam, Mr., a popular player in America, 21.3. 

Ifallett family, of New York, the place of residence of, 
8.3, note. 

Hamilton family, of Philadelphia, their standing, 12. Al- 
exander II., and James H., subscribers to the Phila- 
delphia dancing assembly, in 1748, 13, note. Miss H., 
295, 296. Nancy II., 250. Mrs. H., one of the Phila- 
delphia "dames," in 1757, 13. 

, Alfxander, of New York, delegate to the " Con- 
vention," 58. Marries a daughter of General Schuyler, 
54. His place of residence in New York, 29, 173. 
One of the attorneys of the Supreme Court, 175. 
John Blair Linn, a law student in the office of, 176. 
His remarks on the establishment of the Constitution, 
77. Is one of the authors of the Essays called " The 
Federalist," 113. Is appointed Secretary of the 
Treasury, 180. A vindication of, from the suspicion 
of favoring "kingly and aristocratical" institutions, 
221. His financial schemes, 329. At the President's 
request, suggests Eules for the Chief Executive's re- 
ceiving visitors, and entertaining company, 150. His 
letter to Washington, urging him to accept the Presi- 
dency for a second term, -341, 343. Recovers from the 
yellow fever, 371. His oration on the death of Gen- 
eral Greene, 178. His influence in removing the seat 
of Government to the District of Columbia, 232, 233. 
In his Reports, he uses the decimal system of dollars 
and cents, 824, note. Resigns his olfice as Secretary 
of the Treasury, 356. His account of Erick Bellman, 
3S9. Brissotfs admiration of, 89. His character vil- 
ified by Freneau, 844. Notice of, 53j 173. Personal 
appearance of, 53. 

Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, daughter of Gen. Schuyler, 
54. Sister of Mrs. Church, 880. Is present at the 
Inauguration Ball, 156 ; and among the assemblage 
on occasion of Hamilton's Oration on Gen. Greene, 
178. Is an intim.ate friend of Mrs. Washington, 393: 
and in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. Is now 
(November, 1854) living, 395. 
. , Andrew, of Philadelphia, marries Abigail, daugh- 
ter of David Franks, 27. Occupies the finest rural 
residence in Pennsylvania, 22, 27. Mrs. H., elder 
sister of Miss Rebecca Franks, 22. 

ffammatt, Madame, of Bangor, Maine, niece of Mrs. Gush- 
ing, 387, note. 

Hammond, George, British Minister, marries Miss Allen, 
358, 880. Description of, 380. He and Mrs. II. dine 
with Washington, 887. His communication with 
Wolcott, respecting Fauchet and Randolph, 358. Is 
succeeded by Mr. Listen, 887. 

Hampton, Colonel Wade, conducts Washington to Colum- 
bia, South Carolina, 3.3S. 

Uancock, John, Governor of Massachusetts, 8, 123. His 
residence, 189. His. reception of Vice President 
Adams, 123. Rumors of a misunderstanding between 
him and Washington, 186, 190. Presents a rich car- 
pet, for the Philosophy Room at Cambridge, 193, note. \ 



Mrs. H., formerly Miss Quincy, 192, note. Notice of 
her, 192, note. Copley's portrait of her, ib. 

Hancock, Thomas, full-length portrait of, in the Philoso- 
phy Room at Cambridge, 193, note. 

Harding, Miss Peggy, one of the Philadelphia " belles " 
in 1757, 13. 

Having, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

HarUey, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia " belles," in 1757, 
Id. 

Harleston, Mrs., and her mother, mention of, by Miss 
Franks, 26. 

Harper, Robert Goodloe, a prominent Federalist, son-in- 
law of Charles Carroll, 895. 

Harrison, Anne, marries Thomas Willing, 14 Her pedi- 
gree, 14. 

, Henry, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 

assembly, in 1748, 1.3. Mrs. H., one of the Philadelphia 
" dames," in 1757, 13. 

, Richard Nicholas, of New York, an eminent law- 
yer, 175, 211. His letter to Mi'. Powell, relative to 
the eftect of Washington's cares and duties on his 
health, 211. Member of the Social Club, 148, note. 
In Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

, Robert II., Chief Justice of Maryland, declines the 

appointment of Judge of the Supreme Court of the 
U. S., 181. 

, Major General Thomas, of Cromwell's army, 

member of the Long Parliament, 14 ; and of the 
Court that condemned Charles I., 14. Paternal grand- 
father of Anne Harrison, 14. Copy of the portrait of, 
painted for President William Henry Harrison, 14, 
note §. 

, William Henry, President of the United States, a 

descendant of Major General Thomas H., of Crom- 
well's army, 14, note %. 

Harsin, Captain, of New York, his celebrated New York 
Grenadiers, 139. 

Hartford, Connecticut, the manufacturers of, present a 
piece of broadcloth to Vice President Adams, 123. 
Reception of Washington at, 184. Oliver Wolcott's 
residence at, 205. 

Hartley, Thomas, of Pennsylvania, Member of Congress, 
his place of residence in New York, 103, note. 

Harvard Coflege, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 7, 193, 194. 
Portrait of Washington painted for, 409. 

Harwood, Mr., a player at Philadelphia, marries Miss 
Bache, granddaughter of Dr. Franklin, 372. 

Hathorn, John, of New York, Member of Congress, his 
place of residence in New York, 166, note. 

Hnviland family, of New York, residence of, 33, note. 

Hawkins, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Hawks, John, architect, his drawings of the old palace of 
Gov. Tryon, 331, note. The Rev. Dr. Francis L. H., 
grandson of John H., ib. 

Hawkshurt family, of New York, residence of, 33, note. 

Hay, John, an ofticer of the British army, a member of the 
Social Club of New York, 148, note. 

Hayes, Lady, daughter of Mrs. Henry White, and widow 
of Peter Jay Monroe, 210, note. 

Hazard, Ebenezer, Postmaster General, 1.30. 

Heister, Daniel, of Pennsylvania, Member of Congress, 
his residence in New York, 166, note. 

Henry, Mr. and Mrs., neighbors of Dr. Rush, present at 
the festival in honor of the Dauphin, 20. 

, John, of Maryland, U. S. Senator, his place of resi- 
dence in New York, 166, note. 

, Patrick, Governor of Virginia, 207. Ilis speech 

on the U. S. being independent of all nations, and un^ 
der the influence of none, 347. 

, Mr., a popular player at Philadelphia, 213, note. 

Hersey, Ezekiel, portrait of, in the Philosophy Room at 
Cambridge, 193, note. 



468 



INDEX. 



Hervey, Colonel, aid-de-camp to "Wellington, marries 
Miss Caton, 209, note. His widow marries the Mar- 
quis of Caermarthen (Duke of Leeds), 209, note. 
Hewson, John, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 

assembly, in 174S, 13. 
Heyward, Judge, of New York, his dwelling-house, 835, 
note. 

Hickman, Miss Nancy, one of the Philadelphia "belles," 
in 1757, 18. 

nicies family, of New Tork, place of residence of, 83, 
note. 

midreth, R., author of a History of the United States, 
157. Corrected, 157. 

^tW family, of Philadelphia, aristocratic ancestry of, 11. 

, Richard, jr., one of the subscribers to the Phila- 
delphia dancing assembly of 174S, 1-3. 

ITindman, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Hohard, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

jBbbhes, J. R., his biographical account of John Woolas- 
ton, the artist, 159, note. 

Hoffman, Charles Penno, of New Tork, 207, note. 

, Josiah Ogden, eminent lawyer of New Tork, 

175. Takes part in the " Constitution Celebration," 
110. 

Holland. Mrs., her fashionable shop in Philadelphia, 
824. 

Hollis, Thomas, portrait of, in the Philosophy Room at 
. Cambridge, 193, note. 

Hone, Messrs., of New Tork, site of their auction-room, 
32. 

Hooker, Rev. Dr. Herman, his tribute to Mrs. Susan "Wal- 
lace, 866, note. 

Hopkins, Dr. Lemuel, mention of, by Trumbull, 205, 
note, 206. 

Hopkinson, Thomas, a subscriber to the Philadelphia 
dancing assembly, 1748, 13. Mrs. H., one of the 
Philadelphia "dames," in 1757, 13. 

■ , Judge Francis, of Philadelphia, author of the 

Battle of the Kegs, 899. Plans the Constitution 
celebration (17S8) at Philadelphia, 106. His ode on 
the occasion, 107. His verses on "Woolaston, 159, 
note. The companion of Dcnnie and Tom Moore, 
162, note. Letter to, by "Washington, while sitting for 
a portrait by Pine, 407. 

, Judge Joseph, of Philadelphia, author of " Hail 

Columbia, 89S. His account of Oliver Wolcott, 399. 

Hospitality, of the people of South Carolina, 332. 

Houdetot, Madame la Contcsse d', Mr. Jett'erson's letter 
to, in relation to Dr. Franklin, 219. 

Houdon, M., sculptor, comes (17S5) from France, with 
Dr. Franklin, 36, 409. Models the head of Washing- 
ton, at Mount Vernon, 409. 

Houston, Mr. and Mrs., in the Invitation List of Mrs. 
Jay, 99, note. Mrs. H. pays her compliments to Mrs. 
"Washington, 164. 

Howard, John Eager, of Baltimore, U. S. Senator, 395. 
Marries Miss Chew, 895, 4-32. 

Howell, Major, his Ode, sung by ladies of Trenton, on 
Washington's Triumphal Progress, 129. 

nuger,T>a.mi:\, of South Carolina, Member of Congress, 
his place of residence in New Tork, 167, note. In 
Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Huguenots, The, settle in South Carolina, 6.5. Introduce 
the custom of New Tear's calls in New Tork, 214. 

Huntingdon, Benjamin, of Connecticut, Member of Con- 
gress, his place of residence in New Tork, 166, note. 

Huntington, Governor, his reception of Washington, 183. 

Humphreys, "William, one of the subscribers for the 
Pliiladelphia dancing assembly, in 1748, 13. Mrs. 
"William II., one of the Philadelphia "belles," in 
1757, 13. 

■ , Colonel David, 146, 143, 156. Attends "Washing- 



ton on his way to New York, 125; and to Rhodf 
Island, 227. Is one of the Commissioners to treat 
with the Creek Indians, 224. Caricature of, 123, 
note. Ameiican Minister at Lisbon, 328. His poem 
on the Happiness of America, quoted, 404. 



Imlay, "William, of New Tork, a member of the Social 
Club, 148, note. 

Independence, American, resolution to decLare it, adopt- 
ed, June 10, 1776, 39. Acknowledged by foreign na- 
tions, 1. Declaration of, celebrated, 177. 

Uall, Philadelphia, 48, 217. Importance of the de- 



liberations held in, 43. Notices of the members of 

the Convenfion held in, 48—76. 
Indians, Creek confederacy of, negotiations with, 223. 
Ingersoll, Josejih II., of Philadelphia, his house, 15 

note *. 
, Mrs., her boarding-house in Court street, Boston, 

189. "Washington engages lodgings there, 189. 
■, Miss Bertha, her.letter to Miss McKean, and ac- 



count of the throng at the Inauguration of "Washinc 
ton, 137. 

Inglis family, of Philadelphia, its standing, 12. Now rep- 
resented in the female line, 13, note*. 

, John, one of the subscribers to the Philadelphia 

dancing assembly, in 1748, 13. Mrs. I., one of the 
Philadelphia "belles," in 1757, 13. 

Insurrection in Pennsylvania, 85-3, 354. 

Iredell, James, of North Carolina, one of the Judges of 
the Supreme Court of the United States, 181. Anec- 
dote of his admiration of Fisher Ames's eloquence, 
86-3. Is present at Adams's inauguration, 419. 

Irving, "Washington, his recollections of AVashington's 
inauguration, 142. 

Irwin, General, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Izard, Ralph, of South Carolina, U. S. Si.'n:itor, 110. ^ 
member of the Committee of Arrangements at Wash 
ington's Inauguration, 139. Dines with "Washington 
164 ; is with him at the Charleston corporation-ball 
(1791), 885. Visits London, Paris, and Florence, 172. 
Is in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. His place 
of residence in New Tork, 166, note. Dislocates his 
arm, .331, note. Notice of, 172. 

Izard, Alice DeLanccy, wife of Ralph, portraits of, by 
Gainsborough and Copley, 172, 173. Notice of her, 
172. 



J. 



Jackson, Andrew, Member of Congress, votes against re- 
solutions compliuientary to "Washington, 417. 

, General James, of Georgia, Member of Congress, 

his place of residence in New Tork, 167, note. Re- 
ception of "VA^ashington by, at Savannah, 837. 

, Major William, one of Washington's private secre- 
taries, 1S3, 187, 1S8. Is a connection of the celebrated 
Mrs. Bingham, 801. Attends Washington in his 
Eastern Tour, 188 ; in his Tour to Rhode IsKand, 227 ; 
and in his Southern Tour, 830. 836. His walks with 
Washington at Philadelphia, 865. 

Jacohins and Jacobinism, 850, 852, 357. 

James, Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Janeway family, of New Tork, tories, their residence in 
Wall street, 81, iiote't. 

Jawdennes, Don Felipe, Minister from Spain, 888. He 
and his lady dine (April 2, '95) with Washington, SS7 
Her diamonds, 8S8. He is succeeded by Martinez. 
8SS. 

Jay family, of New Tork, its high standing, 97, 203. 



INDEX. 



469 



Jay, John, of New York (Chief Justice of the U. 8.), 
one of the Attorneys of the Supreme Court, 175. A 
member of the " Moot " Club, 148, note. One of the au- 
thors of the "Federalist," 113. His remarks on pub- 
lic affairs in 17S6, 43. Vice President Adams con- 
ducted to the house of (17S9), 123. Takes part in the 
reception (17S9) of Washington at New York, 130. 
Is present at Washington's Inauguration, 154. Dines 
with Washington (17S9), 164 ; with the French Charge 
d'Affaires, 217. His dinner-parties, 96. Washington 
visits him at his country-seat, 1S3. Washington's 
letter to him, appointing him Chief Justice, ISl. He 
prepares for the President an elaborate report, 147. 
Accompanies Washington to Paulus Hook, 229. Is 
Envoy Extraordinary (1794) to the Court of London, 
857, His treaty, 357, 360. Is burnt in effigy by the 
Jacobins, 363. Washington's letter to, on the subject 
of the Pennsylvania Insurrection, 353. His letter of 
congratulation to Mr. Bingham, on his marriage to 
Miss Willing, 294. Goes to the theatre at Philadel- 
phia with Mrs. Robert Morris, 373. Is present at the 
dinner to the Creek Indians, 225. Is called on by 
young John Quincy Adams, 78. Wounded in the 
Doctors' mob, 102, note, *. M. Brissot and Mrs. Colo- 
nel Smith-dine with, 90, 91. Vindicated from tho 
suspicion of fiivoring kingly and aristocratic institu- 
tions, 221. Notices of, by Brissot, S9; by Mrs. Colo- 
nel Smith, 91, 92; and by the author, 373, note. 
Trumbull's portrait of, 410. 

, Mrs., her social position, 97. Her Invitation List, 

9S, note. A daughter of Grovernor William Living- 
ston, 97. Letters of, to her husband, 373, note. Ex- 
tract from one of the letters of, to her mother, 93. Is 
present at the Inauguration Ball, 156 ; and at Hamil- 
ton's oration on General Greene, 173. Notices o^ by 
Miss Adams, 9S ; by Mrs. Colonel Smith, 92 ; by Ma- 
dame Lafayette, 9S ; and by the author, 373, note. 

, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation 

List, 99, note. 

Jejei-son, Thomas, of Virginia (afterward President of tho 
United States), is sent to France to supply the place 
of Dr. Franklin, 78. Marie Antoinette speaks to him 
of Miss Vining, 21, note*. Is appointed, by Washing- 
ton, to the post of Secretary of State, ISO, 219. Ar- 
rives (Nov. 1790) from France, 218; and is cordially 
received by Washington, 220. His disagreat'e jour- 
ney to New York, 219. Correction of his account of 
Washington's levees, 150, 151. Goes with Washing- 
ton to Ehode Island, 227 ; and with Madison (1791) on 
a tour to Vermont, 340. His vindication of the dem- 
■ ocrats, 375. Is the patron of Freneau, 235, 344, 345, 
849, note; and intimate friend of Genet, 851, «ote. 
Favors the French Revolution, 396. Opposes Wash- 
ington, 396 ; and, according to the testimony of Fre- 
neau, calumniates him, .345. Offers to Colonel Trum- 
bull the mission to the Barbary States, 396. Colonel 
T.'s description of a dinner-party given by, 396. Is 
present at the dinner given to the Creek Indians, 
225. His conversation with Washington, relative to 
Randolph, .556 ; and letter to him, urging him to serve, 
as President, a second term, 341. Anecdote of, in re- 
lation to the removal of the se.at of government, 2.33. 
Correction of his account of the Inauguration Ball. 
156, 157. His letters to Madame de Brehan, 93 ; and 
Madame d'Houdetot, 219. Ills admiration of Mrs. 
Bingham, and account of iashionable life in Paris, 
298, and note. His letter to his daughter Martha, 
who marries Thomas Mann Randolph, 218, 219, note. 
The granddaughter of, marries Nicholas P. Trist, 218, 
note. 

Jephson, Mrs., her beautiful rural residence, 168. 

Jewels, few, worn in the U. S., in 1789, 155, 7iote. 



Jews, section of the city of New York that was occupied 
by them in 1783, 30, 7iote. 

Jeykell, Mrs. and Miss Fanny, among the "belles and 
dames" of Philadelphia, in 1757, 13, note. 

Johnson, Dr. William Samuel, of Connecticut, delegate 
to the " Convention," 52. An Episcopalian, 52. U. 
8. Senator, 166, note. His place of residence in New 
York, 166, note. In Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99. 
note. Notice of, 52. 

Johnston, Lieutenant General Sir Henry, marries Re- 
becca, daughter of David Franks, of Philadelphia, 27. 

Jones, Dr.. a popul.ar New York physician, 177. 

, Edward, one of the subscribers for the Philadel- 
phia dancing assembly, in 1748, 1-3, note. 

, Chevalier John Paul, and Mrs. S., in Mrs. Jay's 

Invitation List, 99, note. 



£. 



Kali, Baron de, Washington visits thrf grave of, 333. 

Kean, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Kearsley, John, Jr., a subscriber for the Philadelphia 
dancing assembly, in 1748, 13. 

Kelly, Henry, of New York, a member of tho Social 
Club, 148, note. 

Kenible family, the residence of, at New York, .30, note. 

, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Kennedy, Captain Archibald, R. N., (afterward Earl of 
Cassilis,) 23, note t. His house at New York, destroy- 
ed by the great fire, September 21, 1776, 23, notei. 

Kent, James (afterward Chancellor), of New York, one of 
the attorneys of the Supreme Court, 175. 

, Duke of, brother of William IV., in the U. S., 

887. 

Kenyon family, of New York, place of residence of, in 
the city, 33, note. 

Kidd, John, a subscriber to the Philadelxjhia dancing as- 
sembly, in 1748, 13, note. 

Kinffs (now Columbia) College, New York City, 7. 

King, Rufus, delegate to the " Convention," 48. One of 
Sullivan's aids, in 1778, 48. lilarries Mary, daughter 
of John Alsop, 30, note, 99, 100. John Adams's letter 
to, on the occasion, 100. Social position of the family 
of, 91, 99, and note. Character and personal appear- 
ance of, 43, 52, 89. His place of residence, 80, 100. 

King, Mrs. Rufus, character and personal beauty of, 100. 

Kissain, Dr., a popular physician at New York, 177. He 
and Mrs. K., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, ^9, note. 

Knox, General Henry, embraced by Washington, at his 
farewell to the army officers, 3. Washington's letter 
to, relative to the delay of his certificate of election, 
124. Participates in the reception (1789) of the Pre- - 
sident, at New York, 130, 181. Present at the In- 
auguration and the ball, 140, 154. Appointed Secre- 
tary of War, 147, ISO. Is at the dinner given to the 
Creek Indians, 225. An intimate friend of Roche- 
foucauld, 885. His brilliant conversation, 172. Vili- 
fle d by Freneau, -344. Vindicated from the suspicion 
of a predilection for kingly institutions, 221. Resigns 
his office, 856. With Mrs. K., in Mrs. Jay's Invita- 
tion List, 99, note. Residence of, at New York, 
172. 

, Mrs., not at the Inauguration Ball, 157. She is 

one of the most intimate friends of Mrs. Washington, 
164, 837. Her removal to Philadelphia, 251; and 
presence at the first levee there, 826. Personal ap- 
pearance, and character of, 91, 95, 172, 393. 

Kolch, The, or Fresh Water Pond, in the city of New 
York, 8S Account of the neighborhood, 33. 

Kosciusko, at the house of Gen. Gates, 889. Rochefou- 
cauld's notice of, 889, 390. 



470 



INDEX 



Kumie, Rev. Dr. John Christopher, pastor of the United 
Lutheran Church, at New York, in 1789, 1-38, vote. 
His place of residence, IGG, note. Notice of, 17G, and 
notA. 

L. 

Ladd, Dr., the poet, 405, 407. 

L'>-fayeUe, Marquis do, brother-in-law of A'iscount de 
Noailles, 3SS. "Washington's letter to, in 17S4, 34. A 
guest at Mount Vernon, August, 17S4, 84. His atfect- 
ini; leave of W., 85. His meeting with Miss Temple, 
10, 7iote *. Entertains Mrs. Bingham, 295. Visits 
Mrs. Hancock, 192, note. He and Eochefoucauld 
second Mirabcau's motion, that the National Assem- 
bly of France wear mourning for Franklin, 223. 
Washington's anxiety on account of the imprison- 
ment of, 890, 891. BoUman's attempt to liberate, 
SS9. 

, George, "W. L., in America, 390, 421. 

La Forest, M. de, the French Consul, and Mrs. L., 97. 

Laidlaw, Mr. C, and Mrs., 99, note. 

Lamartine, his remarks on Brissot, 85, note. 

Lamb family, of New York, 81. 

Langdon, John, of Now Hampshire, delegate to the 
" Convention," 49. Agent, in New Hampshire, of the 
Continental Congress, DO. Military exploits of, 49. 
U. S. Senator, 119, 19.5, 196, 197. His place of resi- 
dence in New York, 1C6, note. Notice of, 49. Mrs. 
L., 156, 164. 

Lansdowne, Marquis of, commends Talleyrand to Wash- 
ington, 380, 3bl. Mr. Bingham sends a full-length 
portrait of Washington to, 411, 413. 

Lansing, James, of New York, one of the Attorneys of 
the Supreme Court, 175. 

Jjiurens, Miss Mar}"^, marries Charles Pinckney, 104. 

Lauzun, Duke de, his opinion of the women of Philadel- 
phia, 291. 

Law, Mrs., granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, 111. 

liwrence family, of Philadelphia, 12. John, in 1743, 13, 
>iCte. Mrs., Miss Molly, and Miss Kitty, in 1767, 13, 
note. T., senior, and T., junior, ib. 

, John, of New York, an eminent lawyer, 99, note, 

110. Member of Congress, 166, note. Uis residence, 
ib. 

Lear, Tobias, Washington's private secretary, 146, 183, 
188, 196. W.'s letters to, respecting the removal 
from New York to Philadelphia, 238 ; a wine-cooler, 
246 ; a coachman, 247 ; horses, 837. His walks with 
W., 365, 866. Jefferson refers to, 875. Mrs. Lear, 
250. 

Lee, Arthur, 99, jiote, 130. 

, Governor Henry, of Virginia, Washington's letter 

to, on the Pennsylvania insurrection, 353. 

, Richard Bland, of Virginia, Member of Congress, 

167, note. His residence in New York, 167, note. 
Uncle of John Randolph, 208. 

• , Richard Henry (President of Congress), 73. U. S. 

Senator, 119, 166, note. Member of the Committee 
on the Inauguration, 139. Remarks on, by John 
Quincy Adams, 79. In Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. His son Thomas marries Mildred daughter of 
Augustine Washington, 105. 

, William, Washington's servant, 239, 

, Mrs., daughter of Rev. Dr. Buckminster, ner me- 
moir of him, quoted, 196. 

Leech, Miss Mary, marries Richard D. Spaight, 105. No- 
tice of, 105. 

I.eney, Joshua, of Maryland, marries Miss Nicholson, 

103. 
Leonard, George, of Massachusetts, Member of Congress, 
his place of residence in New Y'ork, 166, note. 



Levees, of Mrs. Washington, at New York, 165, 215; and 
at Philadelphia, 326. 

Leicia, Francis, of New York, member of the Social 
Club, 148, note. 

, Morgan (.ifterwivrds Governor of New York), one 

of the attorneys of the Supreme Court, 175. Member 
of the Social Club, 14S, note. Takes a prominent 
part in the Constitution celebration, 110; and the 
Inauguration festival, 139. He and Mrs. L. in Mrs. 
Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

, Mrs., sister of Washington, 179, 861. 

Liancourt. See Hochefovcavld. 

Lincoln, General, one of the Commissioners to negotiate 
with the Creek Indians, 224. 

Linn, Rev. Dr. Wm., of New York, 133, note, 175. No- 
tice of, 175, 176. John Blair L., son of, 176. 

Lispe7wrd, Leonard and Anthony, members of the Social 
Club, 148, note. 

Liston, Mr., British Minister, 887, 400. He and Mrs. L. 
at Wiishington's fiirewell dinner, 418, 419. 

Linermore, Samuel, New Hampshire, Member of Cod- 
gress, his place of residence in New York, 166, note. 

Livingston family, of New York, their standing and re- 
sidence, 31, 7iote.*, 204. 

, Edward, of Now York, one of the Attorneys of the 

Supreme Court, 175. Marries Mary Mclvers, 104. 

, John, and Henry, of New York, members of the 

Social Club, 148, note. 

, Rev. Dr. John II., of New York, Pastor of the 

Reformed Dutch Church (1789), 138, note, 175. 

, John R., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

, Peter Van Brugh, Mrs., sister of Lord Sterling, 

Washington dances with, 156. 

, Philo, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

, Robert Cambridge, the widow of, marries tho 

British Colonel Crawford, 82, note *. 

, Robert R. (afterw.ard Chancellor of the State of 

New York), one of the Attorneys of the Supremo 
Court, 176. Member of the Moot and of the Social 
Club, 148, note. Is in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. Administers to Washington his oath of ofhce, 
140, 141. Is present at tho Inauguration Ball, 154. 

His residence, 146. Mrs. L. pays her compli 

ments to Mrs. Washington. 

, Walter, one of the Commissioners of the Treasury, 



130. 

, William, Governor of New Jersey, delegate from 

New Jersey to the " Convention," 54. Attempt 
(1779) of British troops to capture him, 54, note. His 
mansion, " Liberty Hall," 54. His remarks on fiish- 
ionable life in New York, 83. Extract from his let- 
ter (August, 1779) to his daughter Catherine, 4, note. 
His daughter Sarah Van Brugh marries John Jay ; 
Susan marries John Clevo Symmes; Catherine mar- 
ries Matthew Ridley ; and Judith marries John W. 
Watkins, 97. Character and appearance of, 54. 

Livingston, Mrs. Judge (Brockholst), and Misses Maria 
and Eliza, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Lloyd family, of Philadelphia, 11. 

Logan family, of Philadelphia, its high standing, 11. 

Longfelloic, Ilcnry W., his mansion at Cambridge, for 
mcrly Washington's head-quarters, 186, note. 

Lossing, Benson J., his Field Book of the Revolution re 
ferred to, 331, note. 

Louis XL v., folly of, in revoking the edict of Nantes, 65. 

Lo^iis XVI., of France, Mrs. Bingham at the Court of; 
294. A bust of, in the house of Washington, 850. 
Presents to Congress "full-length portraits of tha 
King and Qeeen of France," 122. 

Louis riiiUppe, d'Orleans, in America, 3S6, 387. Notica 
of, ib. Is joined by two of his brothers, 386. One of 
the visitors of Miss Vining, at Wilmington, 21, note * 



INDEX. 



471 



LouiTier, Miss, marries John Page, M. C, of Virginia, 103. 

Loyalists, cliaracter of, in 1775, 16. Extracts from a poem 
by one, 17 — 19. 

Ludlow family", of New York, tories, residences of, 80, 
note *, 31, note t. Mr. and Mrs. Daniel, in Mrs. Jay's 
Invitation List, 99, note. Daniel, George, and ^Yil- 
liam, members of the Social Club, 14S, note. 

Lusenie, Chevalier de !a, bis festival at Philadelphia, in 
honor of the Dauphin, 19. Account of the dancing- 
room, fireworks, company, and supper, on the occa- 
sion, 19 — 21. A dinner at the bouse of, described by 
Chastellux, 434. Public dinner (1783) to, given by 
Gov. Clinton, 2. An American officer's description 
of Washington at this dinner, 3, note. Marbois, Secre- 
tary of Legation under, 81, note. Washington's fare- 
well letter to (1784), 83. 

Lynch, Mrs. Dominick, 156, 164. 

, Thomas, of South Carolina, a representative at the 

Congi-ess of 1765, 72. • 



ir. 



McCall family, of Philadelphia, 294. Archibald, George, 
Samuel, sen., and Samuel, jun., subscribers for the 
Phila. dancing assembly, in 1748, 13. The mansion 
of Archibald McC, 299. Mrs. Lydia, and Misses 
Molly, Peggy, and Nelly McC. among the "belles 
and dames" of Philadelphia in 1757, 13. 

3fcComb family, of New York, 164, 168. Washington oc- 
cupies the commodious house of Mr. McC, in Broad- 
way, 168. 

McCormick, Daniel, his bachelor's hall in Wall street. 
New York, 31. The friend of Col. Wm. S. Smith, 91. 

McGiUivray, a celebrated Indian Chief, notice of, 223, 
225. 

McLfenry, of Maryland, a delegate to the " Convention," 
07. 

Mcllvaine, David and William, subscribers for the Phila- 
delphia dancing assembly (174S), 13. Mrs. McL, one 
of the Philadelphia " dames," in 1757, 13. 

McLntofih, General, with Washington at Charleston and 
Savannah, 887. 

Jfclvers, Mary, marries Edward Livingston, 104. 

McKean family, of Philadelphia, 12, 828. 

, Thomas, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, takes 

part in the " Constitution Celebration," 106. His con- 
versation with Madison, on the official title of the 
Chief Magistrate, 153. 

, Sally (afterward Marchioness d'Yrujo), 137, note. 
Daughter of Chief Justice MeK., 383. Miss Inger- 
soU's letter to, on the Inauguration, 137. Her re- 
marks on Mrs. Washington's first levee at Phila., 826. 
Marries Don Carlos Martinez, Marquis d'Yrujo, 389. 
Notice of, 389. Her son's eminence, ib. 

Mc TavisU, Mrs., of Baltimore, daughter of PLichard Caton 
and widow of the British consul, 209, note *. 

Macaula-y, Catherine, AVashington's letter to, 24S. 

Mackimen family, of Philadelphia, 13, note. Eobert M., 
one of the subscribers for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

Maclay, William, of Pennsylvania, U. S. Senator (1789), 
his residence in New York, 106, note. 

ilaeuhhin, Mrs. James, with Washington opens (Dec. 20, 
'S3) a ball at Annapolis, 4, and note. 

Maddox family, of Philadelphia, 12. 

Madison, James, of Virginia (afterwards President of the 
U. S.), delegate to the " Conventia a," 09. One of the 
authors of the "Federalist," 113 Member of Con- 
gress, 119, 222. Was a fellow student of Freneau, 2-35. 
His tour with Jeiferson, 340. His conversation with 
Judge McKean, on the official title of the Chief Magis- 



trate, 153. Marries Mrs. Todd (Dolly Payne, the 
Quakeress), 895. Character and personal appearance 
of, 69. Is commended by Brissot, 89. His sister mar- 
ries Eobert Hose. His placo of residence in New 
York, 166, note. 

Mails, measures by the government, for the transmission 
of, 117, note. 

Maland family, 13, note *. John M., a subscriber for the 
Philadelphia dancing assembly (1748), 13. 

ifalbone, Edward G., miniature painter, 412. 

Mandrillon, Joseph, his description of Washington's per- 
sonal appearance, 429. 

Manmon House, the residence of William Bingham, at 
Philadelphia, 297. Its arrangement and decorations, 
800. 

Mamifactures, domestic, Washington clothed in, on his 
Inauguration, 140 ; on the opening of the second ses- 
sion of Congress, 217 ; and Mrs. Washington at Balti 
more, 161. 

Maruois, M. Barbe (afterward Marquis de), Frencl 
Charge d'affaires, 81, 299. Washington's kind regard 
for, S3. Marries Miss Moore, of Philadelphia, sister 
of Col. Moore, SI, note, 800. Washington's letter to 
on the occasion, 82, note. Notices of, 81, note, 82. 
His daughter, wife of the Duke de Plaisance, 82, note. 
Superseded by Louis Wm. Otto, 82, 83. 

Marie Antoinette, converses with Mr. Jefferson respect- 
ing Miss Vining, 21, note*. Ilevolting picture o^ 
displayed as a sign, 851. 

Marks, Mrs., and Miss Fanny, in the list (1757) of Phila- 
delphia " belles and dames," 13. 

Marriages, mode of conducting, in New England, in 
1787, 47. 

Marshall, Christopher, his diary quoted, 163. 

, Miss M., marries Dr. Caspar Wistar, 104. 

3farston family of New York, tories, their residence, 81, 
not-ei. Mr. J. M., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. 

Martin, Luther, of Maryland, delegate to the " Conven- 
tion," 66. Notice of, 66. 

, Governor of North Carolina, his translation of Sir 

William Draper's Latin lines at Governor Tryon'a 
" palace," 831, note. ' 

Marlines. See Trujo. 

Maryland, State of, ratifies (1778) the "Constitution," 
105. 

Gazette, a newspaper published at Annapolis, de- 



scribes Washington's farewell to Congress, 6. 
Mason, Eev. John, of New York, 138, note, 176. 

, Eev. John M., the great pulpit orator, 176, 

, Mr., Mrs., and Mr. jr., of New York, in Mrs. Jay '.5 

Invitation List, 99, note. 
, Mr., of Virginia, U. S. Senator, furnishes a copy 

of Jay's treaty, for publication in Bache's "Aurora," 

857. 
Massachusetts, appoints delegates to meet at Annapolis, 

44. Eatifies (1788) the constitution, 105. Cultivated 

state of society in, in 1787, 45. 
Maithezcs, George, of Georgia,,member of Congress (1789), 

his residence in New York, 167, note. 
Maxwell, Mrs. James H., often danced with Washington, 

156. 
Mayne, Simon, maternal grandfather of Anne Harrison, 

14. 
Maszei, Philip, the correspondent of Jefferson, 435. His 

remarks on society in Virginia, 435. Biographical 

notice of, ib. 
Mercer, John, of Maryland, delegate to the " Convention,'* 

66. Notice of, ib. 
Meredith, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 
Mifflin family, of Philadelphia, 12. 
, General Thomas (afterward Governor of Pennsyl 



472 



INDEX 



vania), a delegate to the " Convention," 59. Presi- 
dent of Congress, 5. Ills tribute to Washington, ib. 
Is present at the festival in honor of the Dauphin, 21. 
Is a witness of the proceedings at a democratic dinner, 
850. Notices of, 59, 90. Fennel's anecdote of, 3T2, 
note. 

Millar, Miss, marries Sir Peyton Skipwith, 104, 105. 

Miller, Eev. Dr. Samuel, of New York, 29. 

Mirabeau, his eulogy ou Franklin, 222. 

Miranda, Gen., his polite notice of Miss Yining, il,note. 

Mitchell, Dr. Samuel Latham of New York, story of his 
causing tlie destruction of the city's trees, 227. Mr. M. 
in the Invitation List of Mrs. Jay, 99, note. 

Monroe, James, Minister to France, 412. His opinion of 
the people of Philadelphia, 251. 

, Peter Jay, Mrs., dowager Lady Hayes, 210, note. 

Montpensier, Due de, brother of Louis Philippe, in 
America, 8S6, 3ST. 

Montgomery, Mrs. (of New York), widow of General 
Eichard M., in the first circles of society, 91, 98. note, 
164. At the Inauguration Ball, 156. 

, Miss, her description of Miss Yining, 21, note * 

Her account of the journej' from Wilmington to New 
York, 119 ; and of a wedding at the Eutgers Mansion, 

102, ?!0<6t. 

Moor family, of Philadelphia, 11^ 

, Andrew, of Virginia, member of Congress, 167, 

note. 

, Eev. (afterward Eight Eev.) Benjamin, one of the 

New York clergy in 17S9, 138, note. 

, John, of New York, a member of the Social Club, 

148, note. 

, Colonel Thomas Lloyd, of Philadelphia, 298, 299. 

M. Marbois marries the sister of, 81, 299. 

Moot, The, a club at New York, 148, note. 

Moravians. See Bethlehem. 

Morrill, Eev. Mr., of the Methodist Church, one of the 
clergy of New York in 17S9, 138, note. 

Morris family, of Philadelphia, 11 ; and of New York, 
31, note*. 

• , Gouverneur, of New York, an Attorney of the 

Supreme Court, 175. Member of the Moot Club, and 
the Social Club, 148, note. His style of living, 395. 
J. Q. Adams's description of a dinner party given by, 
ib. Delegate to the " Convention," 57. Notice of, 58. 

Morris, Eobert, of Philadelphia, the financier, delegate 
to the " Convention," 57. Supplies ordnance and am- 
munition for the army, ib. Business partner of Mr. 
Willing, 255. Senator of the U. S., 17S9, 166, note. 
His sumptuous dinners, 327. His part in the removal 
of the seat of government to Philadelphia, 234 ; and 
to the District of Columbia, 233. The patron of Pine, 
the painter, 408. Is caricatured, 233. Notice of, 57. 

, Mrs. Eobert, entertains Mrs. Washington, 162. 

Accompanies her to New York, 163. Notable for lier 
family arrangements, 245. With John Jay at the 
theatre, 317. 

Morton, Mrs., of Boston, wife of the Attorney General of 
Massachusetts, 405. Her character and poetic writings, 
9, 406, 407. 

Moultrie, General, of South Carolina, Washington dines 
at the house of, in Charleston, 336. 

Mount Desert, Maine, said to be the birth-place of Tal- 
leyrand, 381. 

Mount Vernon, 6, 36, 228, 839. 

Moustier, Marquis de, French Minister, illumination of 
his house, on occasion of the Inauguration, 145, 157. 
His ball in honor of the President, 157, 158. Dines 
with Washington, 104. Is in Mrs. Jay's Invitation 
List, 99, note. Notice of; S3, note, 92. 

Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus, of Pennsylvania 
(Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives), Member 



of Congress (1789), 119, 164, 166, note. Boards at New 
York, with the Eev. Dr. Kunzie, 176, note *. 

, General Peter, of Pennsylvania, Member of Con- 
gress (1789), note. Letter to, from Dr. Eush, on the 
removal of the seat of government to Philadelphia, 
232. His remarks and vote, on the oflicial title of the 
President, 153, 154. 

Music in America, remarks on, by Brissot, 10; and by 
Chastellux, 434. 

N. 

Nantes, edict of, the folly of Louis XIV. in revoking it, 
65. 

Napoleon, Cerrachi is put to death for attempting to as- 
sassinate, 410. His tribute to Washington, 146. 

Nassau Hall, (College of New Jersey), 7, 231, 344, 354 

.Rational Gazette, a journal edited by Freneau, 344, 345, 
848. 

National Assembly of France, resolves to wear mourning 
for Franklin, 223. 

National Bank. See Bank National. 

Neutrality, address commending Washington's procla 
mation of, 349, 350. 

New England, characteristic traits of the character, in- 
tellectual and social, of the people, 45, 65, 06. Habits, 
manners, dress, 45, 46. Washington's tour to, 183. 

New Hampshire, appoints delegates to meet at Annapo- 
lis, 44. Eatifies (17SS) the Constitution, 105. Presi- 
dent and Council of, give a dinner to Washington, 
197. 

New Haven, Connecticut, presents John Adams with the 
freedom of the city, 123. 

New Jersey, sends delegates to Annapolis, 48. Eatifies 
the Constitution, 105. College of, see Nassau Hall. 

New Yearns Calls, the custom of making, introduced by 
the Dutch and the Huguenots, 214. Washington's re- 
mark on the custom, 216. 

Neio York, State of, sends Commissioners to Annapolis, 
43. Eatifies the Constitution, 112. 

City, the seat of government, 203, 231. Evacuated 



(1783) by the British, 2. Dr. Duer's particular de- 
sctiption of its appearance, at that time, 27, s.«. Eava- 
ges of the great fire in 1776, 23, note *. Account of, 
in 1788, 86. Dr. Belknap's journey from, to Phila- 
delphia, 116, 117, 119. Eapid increase of its popula- 
tion and prosperity, 7. — Social refinement of, at the 
beginning of the Eevolution, 7; and In 17S9, 203. 
Topographical condition, in 17S8, 102, and noief. 
Commercial prosperit}', in 17S9, 226. Eates of living 
in, 206. Numerous weddings in, in 1787, 1788, 102. 
Gayety and dissipation of, 22, 207; card-playing, 23; 
costume, 24, 25 ; light behavior, 23, 24 ; the theatre, 
213. State of religion, 207. J. Q. Adams's remarks 
on life in, 79, 80. New Year's Calls, 214. Absurd 
conduct of the Mayor and Corporation, in cutting 
down trees, 226, 227. Eeception of the President, 1.33. 
Principal streets of, 166, note, 167, note. Prospects 
of, 7. 

Niagara Falls, visited by Louis Philippe and brothers, 
887. 

Nicholson, Commodore, 110, 111, 130. 

Niemceu-ic'z, the poet, Eochefoucauld's notice of, 889,890. 

Noailles, Viscount de, comes to America, in 1793, 878. 
Brother-in-law of L.afayette, 378. Attends Mrs. Wash- 
ington's drawing-room, ib. The story of his being 
closeted with the President, ib. His proposed settle- 
ment on the Susquehanna, ih. An entertainment 
at his unpretending quarters in Philadelphia, 879. 

Norris famil}', of Philadelphia, 11. 

North, Major Wm., of New York, 99, note, 110. 

North Carolina, appoints delegates to meet at Annapo- 



INDEX. 



473 



lis, 44. Accepts the Constitution. 217. State of so- 
ciety in, 64. " Scotch Irish " population of, 64. 
Kbrthei/, a Quaker, of Salem, Mass., his characteristic 
Salutation of Washington, 194. 



0. 

Ogden, Eev. Mr., of Queen's Chapel, Boston, 196. 

, Miss, a celebrated beauty, notice of, SO. 

OgsMiry, Francis, hardware and fancy shop of, 80. 

Oldmixon, Sir John, the Bath beau, his reverse of for- 
tune, 373. Lady O., formerly Miss George, is a player 
on the Philadelphia stage, 873. 

Osbuni, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia " dames," 13. 

Osgood, Samuel, of Kew York (Postmaster-General), 
181. Prepares the house at New York, intended for 
the occupation of President, 167, Standing of his 
family, 99; note,1()Z. One of the Commissioners of 
the Treasury, 130. Postmaster-General, 181. Genet 
marries his daughter, 852, note. 

Oswald, Mrs., and Misses Peggy, Betty, and Molly, among 
the Philadelphia "belles and dames," of 1757, 18. 
Mrs. O., one of the elite, 23, 

Otis, Harrison Gray, of Massachusetts, son of the Secre- 
tary of the U. S. Senate, 893. Marries (1790) Sally 
Foster, 893. Member of Congress (1797), ib. 

, Mrs. Harrison Gray, her beauty, &c., 893. 

' , James, of Boston, S, 191. Mrs. Mercy Warren, his 

sister, 199. 

■ , Samuel A., of Boston, Secretary of the Senate, 

146, 166, note. Mrs., notice of, 893, 

Otto, Louis Guillaume (afterward Comte do Mosloy) 
French Charge d'affaires, supersedes Marbois, S3. 
Character and domestic connections of, 93, 94, note, 
99, note. 

Oxford, young Americans, scholars at, at the beginning 
of the Eevolution, 7. 



Paca, Governor, accompanies Washington (1788) on his 
way from Annapolis to Mount Vernon, 6. 

Page, John, of Virginia, ^Member of Congress, 158, 166, 
note. Marries Miss Lowther, 102. His favorable 
opinion of the morality of New York, 232. 

Paine, Eobert Treat, his poetical epistle to Mrs. Morton, 
quoted, 406, 407. An imitator of Merry, 851. 

, Thomas, J. Q. Adams dines with, 82. His insult- 
ing public letter to Washington, 416. 

Painting and painters in America, account of, 407 — il2. 

Parker, Josiah, of Virginia, Member of Congress (17S9), 
166, note. 

Partridge, George, of Mass., Member of Congress (17S9), 
160, note 

Pasquin, Anthony (John Williams), driven from Eng- 
land to America, 406. 

Patterson, Wm., of New Jersey, U. S. Senator, 166, note. 

Patterson, Robert, of Baltimore, a wealthy merchant, 
marries the eldest daughter of Eichard Caton, 209, 
note *. 

Payne, Dolly, marries Mr. Todd, a Qnaker, 395. Is a 
very gay widow, ib. Marries James Madison, after- 
ward President of the U. S., ib. Notice of, 395. 

Peace with Gre.at Britain (1783), 1. 

Peale, Charles Wilson, of Philadelphia, painted fourteen 
portraits of Washington, 411. His mezzotint engrav- 
ing of Washington, ib. 

, James, painted two portraits of Washington, 411. 

. , Kembrandt, painted a portrait of Washington, 

411. 

Pearsall fiimily, of New York, residence of, 33, note. 

60 



Peniberton family, of Philadelphia, 11. 

Penn, Wm., founder of Pennsylvania, came- to America 
in the " Welcome," 11. His death, in 1718, 12. His 
successors become churchmen. 12. 

, family, of Philadelphia, loyalists, 16. Mrs. P. 

(1788), one of the elite of Philadelphia, 23. Her cos- 
tume, 25, 

Pennery, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia " dames," in 1757, 
13. 

Pennsylvania, the founder of, comes to America in the 
" Welcome," 11. Death (1718) of the founder of, 12. 
Sends Commissioners to Annapolis, 43. Eatifles 
(1788) the Constitution, 105. Insurrection (1794), 
353. Executive Council of, pass resolutions on the 
death of Franklin, 222. Desires the removal of the 
seat of government from New York to Philadelphia, 
231. Considers (1785) the subject of licensing thea- 
tres, 213. Washington's property in, 860. 

Pennyfaither, Miss, one of the "belles," in 1757, 13. 

Perkins, Dr. Benj. Douglass, of Connecticut, J. Adams's 
account of him and his tractors, 403. Mrs. Washing- 
ton's story of, 403, 404. His great success in London, 
404. 

, Thomas H., of Boston, marries Sally Elliot, 104. 

Perry, Anne, marries Peter S. Duponceau, 105. 

Peters family, of Philadelphia, 12. Wm. P. and Eichard 
P., subscribers for the dancing assembly, in 1748, 13. 

, Judge Eichard, 127. 

, Mrs., granddaughter of Mrs. Washington, 421. 

Philadelphia, distinguished families from Scotland arrive 
(1740 to 1745) at, 12. Subscription List of the dane. 
ing assembly held (1748) in, 13. Dr. Belknap's jour- 
ney to, 116. Stage-coaches from New York to, 117, 
note. The largest town in America, at the beginning 
of the revolution, 11. Celebrates (1788) the ratifica- 
tion of the Constitution, 106. The metropolis, 801. 
Effects of the removal of the seat of government to, 
237. Eeception of Washington at, 127 ; and of Mrs. 
W., 161. W.'s birth-day celebrated at, 217. Emo- 
tion at, produced by the death of Franklin, 221. Ee- 
ception of the Creek Indians at (1790), 224. The old 
Congress insulted (17S3) by mutineers, adjourns to 
I'rinceton, 221. Genet's reception at, 34S, 349. Mob, 
on account of Jay's treaty, 363. Freneau'S charge 
against the physicians of, 870, note. Yellow fever at 
(1796), 370. Markets, 238. Fashionable shops, 824. 
Women retailers, 26S, note. Currency used in trade, 
824, note. Eapid increase of the population of, 7. 
Social refinement, at the beginning of the Eevolution, 
7, 11, 168, note. Celebrated fetes, 19. Assembly 
Eoom, 8. Theatre, 871. Pleasure excursions to 
Gray's Ferry, 162, note. Dancing and gambling, 327. 
Prodigality, 328. Fashionable life in, described by 
Miss Vining, 22; Chastellux, 8 ; Brissot, 85. Beau- 
jour'a description of the inhabitants, 11. Female 
beauties of, 295. Women of, compared by Chastellux 
with those of Boston, 8. Mrs. Bingham's sway, 20-3. 
Quakeresses, 824. Costume of the women of, 874. 
Brides for several foreign ministers, furnished by, 
888. Rochefoucauld publishes a work on the prisons 
of, 886. 

, Everett describes Philadelphia as the home of 

Washington, 253. Washington's residence in Phila- 
delphia, 253. Description of its society, 253. City 
Dancing Assembly, 254. Adherents to the British 
cause in, 254. Graeme Park, 2.54. Ellerslie, 254. 
Loyalist at Philadelphia, lament of, 254. 

, style of life in, at the close of the Eevolution, 255. 

Its commerce in former days, 255. Its city limits, 
2.56. Its modern growth, 256. Eesidences of its old 
citizens, 256, 257. Places of worship and courts of 
justice, 25S. Philadelphia costume, 259. Sect of 



474 



INDEX. 



Sociniis, 259. Chestnut street, 2G0. "Washington 
Squajre, 260; its extent in 1T89, 261. 

Country around, 263. Seats, 264. Place of Eob- 
ert Morris, 204. Sheriff of Philadelphia, 265. The 
Grangs, 265. Belmont, 265. Lansdowne, 266. "Wood- 
.ands, 267. Graeme Park, 267. Willington, 267. 
Andalusia, 267. 

The Learnerl Professions, 268. Bishop "White, 
268. Eobert Blackwell, 269. Dr. James Abercrom- 
bie, 209. Christ Church, 271. St. Peter's, 271. 
Washington's pew, 271. Anecdote of Judge Peters, 
271. Dr. "William Smith, 272. Dr. Ashbel Green, 
273. The "Old Buttonwood," 274. Dr. Ilelmuth, 
275. Dr. Robert Blackwell, 275. The Bar, 277. Mr. 
Bradford, 277. Mr. Edward Tilghman, 278. Mr. In- 
gersoll, 281. John Dickinson Sargcant, 282. Mr. 
Eawle, 282. Mr. Alexander James Dallas, 283. Mr. 
Samuel Sitgreaves, 283. Mr. "V\'illiam Lewis, 284. 
The Medical Profession, 285. Dr. Paish, 285. "William 
Shippen, 287. Dr. "Wistar, 283. Philip S. Physic, 
290. 

Familiea of Philadelphia, 802. Mr. Bingham's, 
302. Mrs. "William Jackson, .302. Note on the "Will- 
ing mansion, 803. Mrs. Bradford, 807.- Establish- 
ment of Robert Morris, 80S; his wife, 809; his home, 
812; encouragement of the arts, 812. Family of 
Chief Justice Chew, 815. Family of Judge Peters, 
816. Family of Shippen, 817. Family of Bishop 
"White, 819. The Ilamiltons, 320. Major Pierce But- 
ler, 321. Elias Boudinot, 822. 

Phillips family, of Philadelphia, loyalists, 16. Of New 
York, 203. The family mansion of, 30. 

■ , Mrs. Henry, a great favorite with Washington, 

895. 

Physicians, popular, of New York, in 1789, 17T. Flight 
of, from Philadelphia, during the yellow fever, 370, 
note. 

Pickering, Colonel Timothy, Secretary of "War, 856, 359. 
Washington'^ letter to, respecting M. d'Yrujo. 

Pierce, Mr. and !Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. 

Pinckney, Charles, delegate from South Carolina to the 
"Convention," 74. Character and personal appear- 
ance of, 74. Marries Miss Mary Laurens, 104. 

, Charles Cotesworth, delegate from South Carolina 

to the "Convention," 73. His military exploits, char- 
acter, and appearance, 73, 74. 

, Mrs., of Charleston, letter of, to Mrs. Cashing, 887, 

note. 

Pine, Robert Edge, painter, visits America, 408. His ob- 
ject, 86, 408. Portrait of Washington by, 407, 408; 
and of Garrick, 403. His cast of the Venus de' Medici, 
408. Notice of him, his wife, and daughters, 408. 

Piniard, Mr., Mrs., and Miss, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation 
List, 91, 99, «o<(3. Major P., of New York, 123. John 
P., of New York, his account of Washington's receiv- 
ing New Year's Calls, 214. 

Pitt, the elder, statue of, at New York, 30. 

Plaisance, Due de, son of Le Brun, marries the grand, 
daughter of Mr. Moore, of Philadelphia, 82, note. 

Piatt, Colonel Richard, Chief Marshal at the New York 
"Constitution-celebration," 110. 

Plumsted family, of Philadelphia, 12. Wm. P., a sub- 
scriber for the dancing assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 
Miss Betty P., one of the "belles," in 1757, 13, note. 

Poelnitz, Baron, takes part in the New York " Constitu- 
tion-celebration," 110. 

Politics, reflections on, 42.3, 424. 

Polyceen, James, a subscriber for the Philadelphia danc- 
ing assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 

Ponteves, Viscount, the French admiral, reception of 
Washington by, at Boston, 190, 191, 193. 



Pnpe, Mr., his Phanetarium in the Philosophy Room a' 
Cambridge, 198, note. 

, the poet, his mention of Wm. Shippen, 15, tiote%. 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Washington's reception at, 
195. Refined state of society at (1789), 196. Private 
carriages, and liveries, ib. 

Portuguese Minister. See Frere. 

Post, Dr. Wright, a popular physician of New York, 177. 

Pon-ell, Samuel, of Philadelphia, 211. Standing of the 
family of, 294, 298. Uncle of Mrs. Bingham, 298. 
Pall-bearer at Dr. Franklin's funeral, 221, note. 

, Mrs., the intimate friend of Mrs. Washington, 

875, 393. 

Pratt, Mr. and Miss, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. 

Prescott family, of Boston, ancient and distinguished, 8. 
Literary fame of, ib. 

Prevost, Mrs., widow of a British ofHcer, marries Aaron 
Burr, 174. 

Price, Benj., a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

Priestley, Dr. Joseph, in America, in 1794, 379. Supports 
the French interest, ib. Is disappointed, and retires 
to Northumberland, Pennsylvania, 8S0. Thom.a3 
Cooper, the intimate friend of, 880. 

Princeton, New Jersey, the old Congress remove (1783) 
to, 281. See Nassau, Hall. 

Prisons of Philadelphia, a work treating of, published by 
Rochefoucauld, 386. 

Protector of Liberties, a proposed title of the Chief 
Magistrate of the U. S., 153. 

Providence, Rhode Island, Washington's enthusiastic re- 
ception at, 227. 

Providence of God, recognized, in the formation of the 
" Convention," 75 ; and the election of Washington, 
114. Recognized by Congi-ess, 181. 

Provoost, Dr. Samuel (Bishop of New York), one of tho 
clergy of New York, in 1789, 183, note. Consecrates 
Trinity Church, in the city of New York, 226. Notice 
of, by Dr. John W. Francis, 176, notei. He and Mrs. 
P., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. Mrs. P. ia 
at the Inauguration Ball, 156. She pays her compli- 
ments to Mrs. Washington, 164. 

Pryor family, of New York, residence of, 8.3, note. 

Public Worship, Washington's habit of, 151, 184, 190, 196, 
226, 336, 866. 

Punch, much used (1787) in genteel families in New Eng- 
land, 46. 

Q. 

Quakers, and Quakeresses, remarks on, 11, 194, 232, 823, 

824, 825, 854, 374. 
Quincy family, of Boston, ancient and distinguished, 8. 
, Josiah, the guest of Oliver Wolcott, 400. Mrs. 

Adams's account of, 400, 401. 
, Mrs. John Hancock, a member of the Quincy 

family, 192, note. 

R. 

Pamsay, Dr. David, of South Carolin.a, a member of the 
Continental Congress, 79. His writings, quoted, 382, 
883. 

Randall, Captain Thomas, of New York, Washington's 
letter to, respecting his barge, 230. 

Randolph, Miss, a Philadelphia " belle," in 1757, 13. 

, Beverly, Governor of Virginia, 215. 

, Edmund, of Virginia, Attorney General of the IT. 

S., 181. Secretary of State, 354. Conversation of 
Washington and Jefferson, in relation to, 356. Ilia 
disgraceful conduct, in reference to cabinet secrets. 



INDEX. 



475 



Jay's treaty, &c., S57. His detection, 858, 859. His 
" Vindication," 360. Notice of, 207. 

Randolph, John, his boon companions, 823. His correspon- 
dence with ]Mrs. Morris, 20T, not6. His praise of Miss 
Martha Jefferson, 213, note. Notice of, 207, 208. 

' , Thomas Mann, of Tuckahoe, marries Martha, 

daughter of Thomas Jefferson, 219. 

liapelye, Stephen, of New York, member of the Social 
Club, 148, 7iote. 

liawdon, Lord, Washington visits the spot where Gene- 
ral Greene was attacked by, 838. 

, M., secretary of M. Gardoqiii, 72. 

Rawle, Wm., of Philadelphia, 29S, 823. 

Eea, Daniel, the vocalist of Boston, his salutation of 
Washington, 189. 

Read, George, of Delaware, delegate to the " Conven- 
tion," GO. U. S. Senator (1789), 166, note. His char- 
acter and personal appearance, 60, 61. 

Eeade, John, of New York, a member of the Social Club, 
143, note. 

Reed family, of Philadelphia, 12. Mr. E., at the festival 
in honor of the Dauphin, 21. W^illiam B. Eeed's 
Memoir of President Eeed, quoted, 163, note. 

Reily, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia "dames," in 1757, 13. 

Religion, Oliver Wolcott's account of, in the city of New 
York, in 1739, 207. List of clergymen in the city, in 
1789, 138, note. Col. Trumbull's account of the con- 
tempt of, exhibited by Mr. Jeflfersou and Mr. Giles, 
896, 398. See St. Paul's Chapel. 

Revolution, American, dates of its beginning and end, 1. 

RevoliUionary War. See War of the Revolution. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, his remarks on portrait painting, 
quoted, 412. 

Rhode Island, State of, appoints Commissioners to meet 
at Annapolis, 44. Sends no delegates to the " Con- 
vention," 50. Is visited in 1789, by Washington, 227; 
who is divertingly confounded with President Man- 
ning of the College of, 185. 

IHchardson, Miss Jeany, one of the Philadelphia "belles," 
in 1757, 13. 

, Eev. Wm., maternal uncle of Wm. E. Davie, 70. 

Richmond, Virginia, Washington's reception at, 831. His 
statue, 409. Celebration of his Birth-day, in 1790, 
217. 

Richmond mil, 168, 174. 

Ricketts, Mr., his circus at Philadelphia, visited by Wash- 
ington, 375, 376, and note. 

Ridley, Matthew, marries Kitty, daughter of Governor 
Wm. Livingston, of New Jersey, 97. 

Rittenhouse, David, is a pall-bearer at Franklin's funeral, 
221. Takes part in the reception of Genet, 849. 

Rivijigtoii family, of Philadelphia, 11. 

. , of the Eoyal Gazette, his residence in New York, 

81, note. 

Robbins, Edward (afterward Governor of Massachusetts), 
discovers Talleyrand at Mount Desert, in Maine, 881. 

Robertson, Mrs., of Philadelphia, one of the " belles and 
dames," in 1757, 18. 

, General, pays his respects to Miss Franks, 24. 

■ , Archibald, of Aberdeen, painter, is Introduced to 

Washington by Earl Buchan, 410. Is bearer of the 
Earl's present to W., of the " Wallace box," ib. Por- 
trait of W. by, 410. 

Robin, Abbe, his views of society in America, 436. His 
description of Washington's personal appearance, 428, 
429. 

Robinson family, of New York, loyalists, 16. 

Rochambeau, Count, with Washington, on his way to 
Yorktown, 6. Chastellux, a Major General under, 9. 
His remarks on the extravagance of women's dress in 
America, 323. 

Roehefoucauld, Due de la, his views of society in Amer- 



ica, 436, 487, 438. His remarks on the extravagant 
love of pleasure in Charleston, 333 ; and on ribbons 
and Quakeresses, 323. His description of General 
Knox, Mrs. K. and their daughter, 393. His notice 
of Kosciusko and Niemcewicz, 889, 890. Is one of 
Miss Vining's guests, 26, note. His description of 
Gray's Ferry, 162, note. His most intimate associates, 
895. He and Lafayette second Mirabeau's motion in 
the French National Assembly, to mourn for Frank- 
lin, 223. Thiers' description of, 385. His writings, 
836. Notice of, 353. 

Rodgers, Eev. Dr. John, of New York, 29, \Zi,note, 176. 

Ro7idon, Mr., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Roosevelt family, of New York, their residence, 88, note. 

, Isaac, sen., first President of the Bank of New 

York, 33, note. 

Rose, Eobert, marries the sister of James Madison, 823. 

Ross, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia "dames," in 1757, 13 

, James, of Pittsburg (afterward U. S. Senator), 

Washington's agent for the sale of his lands in Penn- 
sylvania, 860. His anecdote of Washington on the 
appearance of Eandolph's Vindication, 861. His 
beautiful daughter, 894 : an intimate friend of Mrs. 
Washington, 893. 

, Miss Eliza, of Bladensburg, Maryland, marries 

Jeremiah Smith, 402. 

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, of Philadelphia, his account of M. 
Luzerne's fete in honor of the D.auphin, 20, 21. His 
opinion of the morals of New York, 232. Mrs. E. at 
the Dauphin fete, 20. 

, Judge Jacob, of Philadelphia, takes part in the 

" Constitution Celebration," 106. 

, Eichard, of Philadelphia, his recollections of 

Washington, 367, 868. His anecdote of Washington's 
attachment to Lafayette, 891 ; and remarks on his 
residence, 242, note. His tribute to Washington, 242, 
note. His notice of Mrs. Bradford, 394, note. 

Rutgers, Colonel, of New York, his mansion and grounds, 
225. Marriage of his daughter, ib. 

Rutherford, John, and Mrs., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 
99, note. 

Rutledge, John, of So. Carolina, delegate to the " Con- 
vention," 72. At the Congress in 1765, 72. Judge of 
the Supreme Court of the U. S., 181. Character, his- 
tory, and appearance of, 72, 73. His sister marries 
William Smith, .395. 

Rye, New York, the estate of Mr. Jay at, 183. Mrs. Jay 
buried there, 873, note. 



S. 



St. Clair, General Arthur, meets Washington on his way 
to Philadelphia, 127. Is present at the Inauguration, 
140. Dines with Washington, 164. 

St. Glain, M. de, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

St. Paul's Chapel, New York, the largest and most fre- 
quented in the city, 81. J. Q. Adams attended ser- 
vice there, in 1785, 80. President Washington, Vice 
President Ad-ams, and the Senators, Eepresentatives, 
and Heads of Departments, attended prayers there, 
immediately after the Inauguration, 144, 145. Ham- 
ilton's Oration on General Grcen^ delivered there, 
177, 178. 

Salem, Massachusetts, Washington's reception at, 194. 
His birlh-day celebrated at, 217. 

Salisbury, Lady, Mrs. Adams describes the appearance 
of, 296. 

Saratoga, New York, Jefferson and M.adison visit the 
battle-field of, 340. Washington and Governor 
George Clinton contemplate the purchase of the 
springs of, 85. 



476 



INDEX. 



Sarclam, Holland, Peter the Great works (1C97) in the 
dock-yard at, 243. 

Saitssure, M. de, one of Mr. Jay's guests, 91. 

Savage, Edward, painter, portrait of Washington by, 
409. 

Savannah, Georgia, defence of, in 1799, 337. Eeceptlon 
of Washington at, 836, 837. 

Scldegel, Augustus von, his remark on authorship, 
quoted, 423. 

Schureman, James, of New Jersey, Member of Congress, 
in 17S9, ice, note. 

ScMiyler, General, father of Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, 
Mrs. Van Hensselaer, and Mrs. Church, 3S0. In Mrs. 
Jay's Invitation List, 99, 7iot6. 

ScMiylkill River, celebrated by a poet, 162, note. Con- 
trasted with the Hudson, by :Mrs. Adams, 249. 

Scotch Irish settlement in North Carolina, character of, 
64. 

■ , families, arrive at Philadelphia, about 1740 — 45, 

12. 

Scott, Thomas, of Pennsylvania, Member of Congress in 
17S9, 166, note. 

Soriha, Captain, his German Grenadiers at the Inaugu- 
ration, 139. 

Seagrove, James, of New Tork, a member of the Social 
C\\x\>,Ui, note. 

Sears, Mr., and family, guests of Mrs. Jay, 99, note. Miss 
S. dines with Gen. Knox, 79. Her personal appear- 
ance described by J. Q. Adams, 79. 

Seat of Government, under the Constitution, at New 
Tork, 113 ss. Its removal to Philadelphia, 231 ss, 
251. 

Sedgwick, Theodore, of New York, Member of Congress, 
in 1789, 166, note. A guest at Mr. Jay's, 91. J. Q. 
Adams calls on, in 1785, 78. 

, Mrs. S., at the first levee in Philadel])hia, 826. 

Notice of her, ib. 

Segar. See Cigar. 

Seixas, Kev. Gershom, of New Tork, in charge of the 
Jewish congregation there, 17S9, 138, note. 

Se7iy, Joshua, of Maryland, Member of Congress in 1789, 
166, note. 

Serene Highness, a proposed title of the President of the 
U. S., 153. 

Seton, Miss, marries John Vining. M. C. of Delaware, 
102. 

Several River, Maryland, the President and his suite 
meet with an accident on, 330. 

Seymour, Julia, Trumbull's portrait of, 410. 

Shaic, Mrs. (sister of Mrs. Adams), Mrs. Adams's letter 
to, describing Kicbmond Hill, 168. 

Sherman, Roger, of Connecticut, delegate to the " Cou- 
vention," 50. Member of Congress in 1789, 119, 166, 
note. Playfully referred to, by John Armstrong, 122, 
note. Present at the Inauguration, 140. Character 
and personal appearance of, 50, 51. One of the Sign- 
ers of the Declaration of Independence, 50. 

Shippen, Joseph, of Philadelphia, subscriber for the Phi- 
ladelphia dancing assemblj', in 1748, 13. >Irs. Joseph 
8., one of the Philadelphia " dames," in 1757," 13. 

, family, of Philadelphia, 11, 12, 15. Edward, 

grandfather of Mrs. Anne Willing, 15. Chief Justice, 
299. 

SMdons, Mrs., sister of Mrs. Whitlock, the actress, 373. 

Sidnor, Lynford, subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

Sieyes, Abbu, President of the French National Assem- 
bly, letter of, to Washington, on the death of Frank- 
lin, 223. 

Sims family, of Philadelphia, 12. Joseph and Buckridgo, 
subscribers for the dancing assembly, in 1748, 13. 
Mrs., one of the Philadelphia "dames," in 1757, 13, 



Sinnickson, Thomas, New Jersey, Member of Congress, 
inl7S9, 1G6, note. 

Skipiciih, Sir Peyton, married Miss Millar, 104, 105. 

Smalhcood, General, escorts Washington at Annapo- 
lis, 4. 

Smith, Mrs. George, one of the Philadelphia "dames," in 
1757, 13. 

, Jeremiah, of New Hampshire (afterward Judge 

of the Supreme Court), the friend of Wolcott, Ames, 
and Sedgwick, 401. Playful correspondence with 
Ames, 306. His description of the low state of mo- 
rals in Philadelphia, 827. His flirtations, and love 
ditty, 401, 402. Notice d' 401. * 

, Mr. and Mrs. Malancthon, of New York, in Mrs. 

Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

, Colonel Wm. S., of New York, of the Smith fami- 
ly of Jamaica, Long Island, 91. Is engaged to Miss 
Adams, only daughter of John A., 80, 170. Marries 
her (1786), 91, 100. Returns to America, 101. Hires 
a t\;rm on Long Island, 97. 

, Mrs. Colonel Wm., extracts from letters of, 91, 92, 

94. Her account of public measures, and public men, 

1788, 96. She describes Governor and Mrs. Clinton, 
94, 95. Her opinion of Jliss Martha Jefferson, 218, 
note. Her account of frequent dinner-parties, 96. 
Her remarks on the women of Philadelphia, in con- 
trast with those of Boston, 297. Gen. Armstrong's 
notice of, 101. J. Q. Adams writes verses in the 
scrap-book of her granddaughter, 171, note. 

, Miss Sally, J. Q. Adanis"s opinion of, 81. 

, Rev. Dr. Wm., of Philadelphia, Provost of the 

University of Pennsylvania, is appointed by the 
American Philosophical Society, to delivei a discourse 
on Franklin, 212, 226. 

, Wm., of South Carolina, Member of Congress, in 

17S9, 107, 7iote. A prominent Federalist, and man 
of fashion, 895. Accompanies Washington in his 
Eastern tour (1789), 333. Marries a sister of John 
Rutledge, 895. Portrait of her, by AVoolaston, 159, 
note. 

, William, of Maryland, Member of Congress, In 

1789, 166, note. 

, Jeremiah, of New Hampshire, marries Miss Eoss, 

of Bladensburg, 402, 403. 

Sober family, of Philadelphia, 13, note. John S., a sub- 
scriber for the Philadelphia assembly, in 1748, 13. 
Mrs. S., one of the Philadelphia " dames," in 1757, 
13. 

Social Club of New York, list of members of, 148, not^. 

Society, refined, in America, at the beginning of the Re- 
volution, 7. State of, then, at Boston, 9, 10; at New 
York, 7: Philadelphia, 7, S, 11, 12, 253. In New 
^ngland, in 1787, 45; habits, manners, dress, dinners, 
\-' suppers, cards, music, 46. At Portsmouth, Mrs. Lee's 
description of, 196. Elegant, at New York, 203; 
Washington's reception-days, 165; he seldom at 
, balls, and Mrs. W. never once, in New York, 204. 
J Amusing description of, by Miss Franks, 22-24; and 
by General Armstrong, 101,102; Oliver Wolcott's ac- 
count of the rates of living, in New York, 200, 207. 
Intellectual and refined, at Philadelphia, according to 
Miss Vining and Miss Franks, 22. Brissot's views 
of it, 85; Lauzun's, 291. State of, in the Southern 
States, 61 ss. In Virginia, a class of _firsi families, 
62 ; landed estates, ib. ; aristocracy, 61 ; castes, 62, 
63 ; spirit of hospitality, 63. In North Carolina, 64. 
In South Carolin;i, 64, 05; the influence of the 
French element in, 65, 332. Characteristic traits of, 
in the North and in the South, 65, 66. Views of 
American, by Beaujour, 48S, 439; Chastellux, 484; 
Mazzei, 435 ; Robin, 436 ; Itochambeau, 433 ; Roche- 
foucauld, 436, 488 ; Talleyrand, 436 ; Volney, 436. 



INDEX, 



477 



Soderstrom, M., Swedish Consul at New York, SI. 

Solms, Count de, "VVasMngton sends a portrait of himself 
to, 40S. 

Sotomayer, Duke of, son of Marqil'is d'Trnjo, 8SS. 

South Carolina, ratifies (17SS) the Constitution, 105, 
Prevalence of duelling in, 332. Opposed to assuming 
the State debts, 233. 

Southern Tour, by Washington, 829. 

Spaight, Eichard D., of North Carolina, marries Mary 
Leech, 105. 

Stafford, Baron, marries a daughter of Mr. Caton, of Bal- 
timore, 209, note*. 

Steadman family, of Philadelphia, 13, note. Alexander 
and Charles, subscribers for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13, Mrs. A. S. and Mrs. C. S. are 
among the " dames " of Philadelphia, in 1757, 13. 

Sieul/en, Baron, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. Is 
present at the Inauguration, 140 ; and the Ball, 154. 
General Armstrong's notice of, 101. His poverty, 
102. President Duer's anecdote of him, in relation to 
the Doctors' Mob, 102, not-e *. 

Stevens, J., of New York, a member of the Social Club, 
148, note. 

Stewart, General "Walter S., of Philadelphia, 333. Mrs., 
. notices of, 297, 393, 394. 

Stiles, Kev. Dr. Ezra, President of Yale College, his re- 
ception of Washington, 184. His Latin oration on 
Franklin, 222. 

Sterling, Lortl, his daughter, Katherine Alexander, mar- 
ries Col. William Duer, 27. 

, Lady, at the Inauguration Ball, 155 ; and pays her 

compliments to Mrs. Washington, 164. 

Stillicater, New York, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison 
visit the battle-field of, 340. 

Stockton, Sukey, at the Philadelphia festival in honor of 
the Dauphin, 20. 

Stone, Colonel, his description of ladies' costume, in 1789, 
155 ; of the Inauguration Ball, 157. His account of 
Washington's levees, 165, note. 

, Michael Jenifer, of Maryland, Member of Congress 

in 1789, 166, note. 

Story, Judge, as a poet, was an imitator of Mr. Merry, 
407. 

Strong, Caleb, of Massachusetts, delegate to the " Con- 
vention," 49. U. S. Senator, in 1789, 166, note. His 
character and personal appearance, 49. 

Sturges, Jonathan, of Connecticut, Member of Congress, 
in 1789, 166, note. 

ySMor^, Gilbert, returns to the U. S. from London, 411. 
Numerous portraits of Washington by, 411. Por- 
trait of Volney by, 389. Washington's note to, 411, 
note. Mrs. Cushiug's mention of, 411. 

Sullivan, General, President of New Hampshire, recep- 
tion of Washington by, 195-197. 

Sumter, Thomas, of South Carolina, Member of Congress 
in 1789, 167, note. 

Sunday, observance of (1789), in New York City, 207. 

Supreme Court, of New York, list of attorneys of, in 
1789, 175. 

Swan, Mrs., of New York, in Mrs. Jay"s Invitation List, 
99, note. „ 

Swift, John, of Philadelphia, a subscriber for the dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. Mrs., one of the " dames," in 
1757, 13. 

, Zephaniah, of Hartford, one of the classmates of 

Oliver Wolcott, 205, 

Sylvester, Peter, of New York, Member of Congress, in 
1789, 166, note. 

Symmes, John Cleve, marries Susan, daughter of Gov. 
William Living.-.ton, of New Jersey, 97. Mrs. S. in 
Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, 7ioie. 



Ta/t, Mr., innkeeper near Uxbrldge, Massachusetts, 
Washington's interesting letter to, 198, note. 

Talleyrand, M. de, visits America in 1794, 380. His let- 
ters of introduction, 380. His reception in the U. 8., 
881. Becomes an American citizen, 3S1. His place 
of residence, 381. Anecdote of M. Beaumefs .ittempt 
to take the life of, 882, 884. Story of his scorching 
his buckskin breeches, 882. His personal appearance 
and manners, 882. Lord Brougham's remarks on him 
as a writer, 433. His admirable description of the 
American woodcutter, and the American fisherman, 
438. 

Talon, M. de, with the Viscount de Noailles, projects a 
settlement on the Susquehanna, 379. 

Tammany Society, or Columbian Order, 217, 223, 224. 

Taylor, Abram, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748. Mrs. T., one of the Philadelphia 
."belles and dames," in 1757, 13. 

Telfair, Governor of Georgia, reception of Washington 
by, at Augusta, 338. 

Temj^erance, the leading virtue of republicans, according 
to M. Brissot, 90. See Punch, and Drunkenness. 

Temple, Sir John, British Consul General, residence of, 
in the city of New York, 82, note *. Contradictory 
accounts of, by Chastellux and Kobert C. Wintbrop, 

94. His conduct towards Colonel and Mrs. Smith, 

95. Lady T., the daughter of Governor Bowdoin of 
Massachusetts, 94. She pays her compliments to Mrs. 
Washington, 164. Sir John and she dine at Mr. Jay's, 
92 ; are in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note ; and 
are present at the Inauguration Ball, 156. Notice 
of Sir John, 94. Kemark on Lady T., b}-^ Chastel- 
lux, 94. 

, Miss, daughter of Sir John and Lady T. (afterward 

Mrs. Winthrop), long the reigning belle of Boston, 
10, note *. Greatly admired by Lafayette, 10, note ; 
and by Chastellux, 9. Mother of Eobert C. Winthrop, 
10, note *. Notice of, ib. 

Thanksgiving and Prayer, Congress request the Presi- 
dent to appoint a day of, 181. 

Tliatcher, George, of Massachusetts, Member of Congress, 
in 1789, 166, note. 

Thayendanegea, an Indian Chief. See Brant. 

Theatres, the toleration of, advocated by Robert Morris, 
and General Wayne, 213 ; and opposed by the Quak- 
ers, 874. A theatre opened (1786) at Philadelphia, 
214 Frequently visited (1791 and 1792) by the Presi- 
dent and Yice President, with their families, 371. 
New theatre erected in Philadelphia, in 1792, it). ; \ti 
manager and actors, 815, 816. A theatre opened 
(1786) at New York, 214; William Dunlap's success 
as a dramatic writer for, 213, 214; Washington at- 
tends, 153, 159. Mrs. Bingham's failure to secure a 
private box in Wignell's, 374. See Drama. 

Theodosia, daughter of Aaron Burr, referred to, 173. 

Thomson, Adam, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

, Charles, Secretary to Congress, is appointed (April 

6, 1789) to inform Washington of his election to the 
presidency, 122. Is at Mount Vernon (April 14, 1789), 
124. He and Mrs. T. in Mrs Jay's Invitation List, 99, 
note. 

Tillers, M., his description of M. de Eochefoucald, 385. 

Ticonderoga, visited by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, 
340. 

Tilghman family, oi Philadelphia, 12. 

Tilly, Alexandre, Comte de, marries Maria Bingham, 418, 
note. 

Titus family, of New York, residence of, 33, note. 

Todd, Mr., a Quaker, marries Dolly Payne, 395; who be- 



478 



INPEX. 



comes, after liis death, the wife of President Madi- 
son, 395. 

Townsend fomily, of New Tork, residence of, 33, note. 

Tractors, Metallic. See Perkins. 

Tracy, Uriah, of Connecticut, U. 8. Senator, anecdote of 
him and Mr. Liston, in relation to Mrs. Oliver Wol- 
cott, 400. One of Oliver Wolcott's classmates, 205. 

Travelling, state of, in America, at the close of the last 
century, 115, 116, 119. New Flyin;; Diligence, 110. 
Eates of, CO years ago, 117, note. Fraunces's stage- 
office, 117, note. 

Traversal/, Marquis and Marquise de, 190, 192. Her 
dress, at the festivities, during AVashington's visit at 
Boston, in 1789, 192. 

Trenton, reception of Washington by the ladies of, in 
' 1789, 129 ; celebration of Washington's birth-day at, 
217. 

Trinity Church, New Tork, burned in the great fire of 
Sept. 21, 1776, 28, note *. The new church conse- 
crated by Bishop Provoost, in the presence of Wiash- 
ington, the cabinet, &c., in 1789, 226. The Rev. Ben- 
jamin Blagrove's musical exhibition, in, ih. 

Trist, Nicholas P., marries the granddaughter ol" Mr. Jef- 
ferson, 218, note. 

Trott, Benjamin, a celebrated miniature painter, 412. 

Trotter, James, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13. 

Trotip, Eobert, of New Tork, one of the attorneys of the 
Supreme Court, 175. Takes part in the " Constitu- 
tion Celebration," 110. 

Trumhull, Jonathan, of Connecticut, Member of Congress 
in 1789, 166, note. 

• , John, of Connecticut, author of " McFlngal," one 

of the classmates of Oliver Woleott, 205, 206. His 
charactei'istic letter to Woleott, 205, note. 

, Colonel John, of Connecticut, his success as an 

artist, 40S. Portraits of Washington by, 225, 835, 
note, 409; his portrait of Mrs. Washington, 369; and 
portraits of Temple Franklin, Nelly Custis, Sophia 
Chew, Harriet Chew, Cornelia Schuyler, Julia Sey- 
mour, and two daughters of Jeremiah Wadsworth, 
410. Effect produced by his full-length portrait of 
Washington, upon the Creek Chiefs, 225, 226. His 
account of a dinner party at Mr. Jefferson's, 896. Is 
offered, by Mr. Jefferson, a mission to the Barbary 
States, 896. Trumbull Gallery at New Havan, 869. 

Tryon, Governor, of North Carolina, the old palace of, at 
Newborn, 831, note. 

Tucker, Thomas Tudor, of South Carolina, Member of 
Congress in 1789, 167, note. One of the relatives of 
John Eandolph, 208. His remarks on official titles, 
and aristocratic living, 154. 

Tudor, Mrs., of Boston, her education and social refine- 
ment, 9. Meets with Chastellux, ib. 

Tuesday Evening Club, of Boston, its antiquity, 9. 

Turenne, Marshal, Flechier's oration on, quoted, 330, note. 

Turnbull, Mr., marries Susan Van Home, 104. He and 
Mrs. T. in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Turner, Joseph, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 



r. 



United Brethren's school. See Bethlehem. 

United. States, articles of Confederation of, 40. Sover- 
eignty of each State, ib. Debt of, 42. Measures to 
extinguish the debt, ib. Early history of the Consti- 
tution of, 43, 44. The first President of, 122 ; his pro- 
posed official titles, 152, 1.53. Treaty of, with Great 
Britain, by Jay, 357. Unparalleleil progress in popu- 
lation and prosperity, 6, 7. 



Valle, M. de ja, one of Mr. Jay's guests, 91. 

Van Berckel, Mr., the Dutch Minister to the U. S., 79 
SO, 210. Among the guests of Mr. Jay, 91, 98, note. 
Kcmarks on the daughter of, by John Quincy Adams, 
SO. 

Van Courtlandt, Angus-us, of New Tork, his house es- 
capes the ravages of the fire, Sept. 21, 1776, 28. He, 
Mrs. v., and the Misses V., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation 
List, 98, note. See Courtlandt. 

Van Bam family, of New Tork, residence of, 31. 

Van Home family, of New Tork, Whigs, the residence 
of, 30, note, 81, note. Mr. and Mrs., Mr. C, Miss Betty 
A., and Miss Cornelia, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 
99, note. Miss Franks, the guest of Mrs. V., 22. Miss 
Kitty, the belle of the family, 23. Miss Susan mar- 
ries Mr. Turnbull, 104; description of her, by Miss 
Franks, 104. 

Van Rensselaer, Jeremiah, of New Tork, Member of 
Congress, in 1789, 166, note. 

Van Schaack, Peter, of Kinderhook, a member of the 
Social Club, 148, note. 

Van Zandt, Miss, at the Inauguration Ball, 156. Wash- 
ington dances a minuet with her, ib. 

Varick, Colonel Eichard, of New Tork, one of the At- 
torneys of the Supreme Court, 175. He and Mrs. V., 
in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Varnum, General, with other distinguished characters, 
escorts Washington into Philadelphia, in 1787, 482. 

Vaudretiil, Marquis de, dines at Mr. Breck's, with Chas- 
tellux, 9. 

Venahles, Mrs., one of the Philadelphia " dames," 13. 

Verlentenberg mil, a portion of the old city wall of New 
Tork, 29. 

Verplanck family, of New Tork, residence of, 81, noief. 
Cornelius V., in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 
Gulian V., President of the New Tork Bank, a mem- 
ber of Social Club, 148, note. 

Victoria, Queen of England, the father of, in the U. S., 
in 1794, 887. 

Vining, John, of Delaware, Member of Congress in 1789, 
166, note. Marries Miss Seton, 102. 

, Miss, account of society at Philadelphia by, 22; 

is celebrated at the court of Marie Antoinette, 21 ; 
among her guests were the Duke de Liaucourt, and 
Duke of Orleans, ib. Miss Montgomery's description 
of, ib. Extract from her letter to Governor Dickin- 
son, 21. 

Virginia, proposal of (1786), for a meeting of Commis- 
sioners on trade and commerce, 43. Eatifles (1788) 
the Constitution, 105. State of society in, 61 — 64. 
See Society. 

Vly Market, in the city of New Tork, 82. 

Volney, M., his observations on dietetics in America, 439. 
His unfavorable opinion of Washington's abilities, 
839. His vanity, 883 ; personal appearance, 839. Ap- 
plies to Washington for letters of introduction, 889. 
Washington's pithy reply to him, ib. Portrait of, by 
Stuart, ib. 



w. 



WadsicorVi, Jeremiah, of Connecticut, Member of Con- 
gress, in 1789, 119, 166, note. 

Wales, Eev. Dr. Samuel, Congregational minister of New 
Haven, his reception of Washington, 184. 

Walker, Colonel, of New Tork, a prominent citizen in 
1788, 82. 

Wall Street, New Tork, formerly the resort of fashion, 81. 

Wallace, John, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 



INDEX. 



479 



assembly, in 1748, 13, note. Mrs. W., one of the Phil- 
adelphia " dames," in 1T57, 13. 

Wallace, John Bradford, nephew of Attorney General 
AVm. Bradford, 366, note, 394, note. The friend of 
Daniel Webster, ib. • 

, Mrs. Susan, wife of John B. "W., Eev. Dr. Herman 

Ilooker's tribute to, 366, note. Was often at balls 
with Washington, ib. Goes with Mrs. Oliver Wol- 
cott, to one of Mrs. Washington's drawing rooms, ib. 
Her description of Mrs. William Bradford, 894, note. 
Her account of Washington's habits, appearance, and 
manners, 365. 

, John W., brother of Horace Binney W., 301, note. 

, Horace Binney, of Philadelphia, his note-book 

quoted, 365. His conversations with his mother, ib, 

, Sir Wm., of Scotland, a box made of the oak that 

sheltered him, presented to Washington by the Earl 
of Buchan, 410. 

Wain family, of Philadelphia, of the elder part of the pro- 
vincial aristocracy, 11. 

Walpole, Horace, his mention of Woolaston, the painter, 
159, note. 

Walton family, of New York, residence of, 3.3, note. 

Wansey, Henry, visits Philade4phia, in June, 1794, 368. 
Describes Washington's simple manners, ib. ; Mrs. 
W. and Miss Custis, 869, 370. His account of the 
Philadelphia theatre, 372 ; the dress of the Philadel- 
phians, 374; Harrowgate Gardens, and Gray's Gar- 
dens, 377. 

War of the Eevolution, its duration, 1. Affliction and 
poverty caused by, 1, 2. Expense of, 42. 

Warren, Mrs., of Philadelphia, one of the " dames " in 
1757, 13. 

family, of Boston, one of distinction, 8. 

, James, of Massachusetts, Washington's letter to 

(1785), suggesting the thought of his Eastern Tour, 
1S3, note. 

, Mrs. Mercy, of Boston, sister of James Otis, 199, 

405. Mrs. Washington's letter to, 200-202. Her 
writings, 200, note. Specimens of her poetry, ib. 
Notice of, ib. Portrait of, by Copley, 200, note. 

Warville, M. Jean Pierre Brissot de. See Urissot. 

Washington, General George, of Virginia, his farewell 
(Nov. 1, 'tj3) to the American army, 1 ; and to the of- 
ficers, 2. Enters the city of New York, with Gover- 
nor Clinton and some of the American troops, 2. 
Governor Clinton's public dinner to, 3. His aflfec- 
tionate manner of parting with his officers, 3. A 
Eevolutionary officer's tribute to, 3, note. His arri- 
val at Annapolis, and reception there, 4. He resigns 
his trust, and retires to Mount Vernon, 5, 6. His in- 
terest in Inland Navigation, 34. His tour to the Wes- 
tern Country, 34. A member of the Convention for 
forming a Federal Constitution, 34, 67; and President 
of the Convention, 86. Unanimously elected Presi- 
dent of the U. S., 122. The hand of Divine Provi- 
dence in this, recognized, 114, 135, 144. His letter to 
General Knox, on the delay of receiving the certifi- 
cate of his election, 124. His triumphal progress to 
New York, the seat of government, 125, 134. His 
places of residence in New York, 33, note, 134, 166, 
167, 168. Tribute to, by John Adams, President of 
the Senate, 185. His pensive reflections, during his 
triumphal progress, 135. His Inauguration, 133 ; the 
religious feeling indulged on the occasion, 138, 139. 
Particular description of the spectacle, 140, 142. His 
speech in the Senate chamber, 142, 144. The fes- 
tivities at the inauguration, 145, 146. His rules for 
receiving visitors, and for entertaining company, 
149. He gives no formal invitations to dinner, 164. 
His Wednesday dinner-parties, 217. Receives calls, 
every Tuesday afternoon, 105. His drawing-rooms 



open, from 8 to 10 o'clock, p. m., every Friday, 165. 
On Sundays, he attended church, and received no 
company, 151. True account of the institution of his 
levees, 151; Mr. Jefferson's account corrected, 150, 
151. Eeceives New Year's calls, 214, 215. The dis- 
cussion of the subjeot of his official title, 153, 154. 
His Cabinet, 1§0. His appointment of Judges of the 
Supreme Court, 181. At the request of Congress, he 
appoints a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, 
181, 182. His Eastern Tour. 183, 202. Visits the 
French fleet at Boston, 192. His example of punc- 
tuality, to the city troops, at Boston, 193. His speech 
to Congress (Jan. 8, '90), 216, 217; is dressed, on the 
occasion, in a suit of American cloth, 2I7. His birth- 
day celebrated throughout the country, in 1790, 217. 
He signs the treaty made with the Creek Indians, 
and holds a personal conferepce with them, 225. His 
Tour to Ehode Island, 227, 228. His affecting fare- 
well to New York, 228, 230. Kemoval of the se.at of 
government to Philadelphia, 233, 234. His place ol 
residence there, 365, and (1794) at Germantpwn, 371. 
His Southern Tour, 829, 839. His remark on the sit- 
uation of the southern country, and the disposition of 
the people, 839. His travelling carriage, 329, 330, 
note. Visits the grave of De Kalb, 338. Jefferson, 
Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph, entreat him to 
serve a second term, 341; extract from Hamilton's 
letter on the occasion, 841, 343. His re-election, .343. 
He is assailed, through the public journals, by the 
democratic party, 352, 857. Forms a new cabinet, 
356. His proclamation of neutrality, in the war be- 
tween France and England, 849. His equipage, when 
going to the Senate, 365, 360. His carriage, attend- 
ants, dress, and appearance, at the opening of Con- 
gress, described bj- Eich.ard Eush, 807, 868. He is 
urged to continue in office a third term, 413. Pub- 
lishes (Sept. '96) his Farewell Address, 414. His last 
message to Congress, Dea '96, 415. His last levee, 
416. His birth-day celebrated at Philadelphia, with 
great enthusiasm, 415, 416 ; a splendid ball on the oc- 
casion, described by Jeremiah Smith, 416. He at- 
tends the inauguration of Mr. Adams, his successor 
and devoted friend, 419; and retires to Mount Ver- 
non, 420, 421; He describes to Gen. Knox the emo- 
tions awakened by the event, 361. 

In Society.— lie attends a ball at Annapolis, and 
opens it with Mrs. James Macubbin, 4, note * ; the 
fete in honor of the Dauphin, 21; the Inauguration 
Ball, 154,155; dances, in a cotillon, with Mrs. Van 
Brugh Livingston, and also with Mrs. Maxwell, and, 
in a minuet, with Miss Van Zandt, 156 ; and attends 
balls at Philadelphia and Charleston, 339, 366. Mrs. 
Cushing's account of one of his dinner-parties, 387, 
888. He attends the theatre, 158, 159, 212, note, 214, 
871 ; and the circus, 375. He witnesses a balloon as- 
cension, the first in America, 877. He is present at 
the commencement of Columbia College, 158. In 
society in Philadelphia in 1787, 4-32. His " rules ol 
civility <hid decent behavior in company," 430. 

Ills Friends: he reveres Franklin, 222; is affec- 
tionately attached to Lafayette and his son, 84, 35, 290, 
291 ; Hamilton, 841 ; Greene, 838 ; Adams, 419, 420 ; 
Enjoyed the society of ^rs. Caton, 210; Mrs. Charles 
Carroll, and Mrs. Henry Philips, 264, 395. His play- 
ful letter to Chastellux, 9, note; and farewell letter 
to M. Gerard, 83 ; and to M. Luzerne, ib. See Jon- 
athan TrvmbiiU, Jvnoa:, Pickering, 0. Wolcott, 
Humphreys, and Lear. 

His Enemies: Jefferson, 845, 849, note, 414; Fre- 
neau, 345, 349 ; Bache, 410 ; Tom Paine, 416 ; Andrew 
Jackson, 417; Genet, 350, 351 ; and others, 357. Ilia 
final letter to Jefferson, 414. Volney's unfavorable 



480 



INDEX 



opinion of, 3S9; Washington's pithy note to him, ib. 
A caricature of, 123, note. An attempt to poison him, 
14S, note. 

In, Bomesfic Life : he visits his aged mother, 124. 
His last interview with her, 124, 125 ; her death, 179. 
His home employments, 34 ; unostentatious mode of 
living, 206 ; moderate wishes, 241 ; furniture, 1G7, 244 ; 
servants, 149, note, 243, 247 ; interest in minute de- 
tails of household affairs, 240, 245; custom of having 
but one dish of meat, 165; moderate use of wine, 1G5. 
dress, 161, 325; early hour of retiring, 216. His daily 
life at Mount Vernon, 422. His considerate Vegard 
for Mrs. W.'s comfort, 164, 247, 24S. 

Ili-s EHigious Character : he refuses to see com- 
pany on Sundays, 149 ; habitually recognizes the 
Providence of God, 4, 5 ; statedly attends public wor- 
ship, 151, 1S4, 190, 196, 226, 336, 336 ; says Grace at table, 
104. He attends prayers at St. Paul's Chapel, New 
York, immediately after his Inauguration, 144. He 
appoints a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, 182. 
His habit of spending an hour in meditation, before 
retiring, and before breakfast, 152. 

IIm Declining Health, 178, 211, 228, 829. His natu- 
ral impetuosity, 361. His remarkable self-control, 346, 
358. His calm views of death, 179. His death, 422. 

Portraits of him, by Trumbull, 225, 335, 409, 410 ; 
Stuart, 411, note; Tine, 407; Du Gimetiere, 408; Ful- 
ton, 408 ; Dunlap, ih. ; Wright, ib. ; Savage, 409 ; 
Madame de Brehan, ■*&. ; Sharpless, 412; Charles W. 
Peale, 411; James Peale, iZ*. ; and Eembrant Peale, 
ilj. ; Busts of him, by Houdon, 409 ; Gallagher, 412 ; 
and Eccleston, 412 ; Engravings of iim, 411 ; Medal- 
lion portrait of him, 156. 

Tributes to him, by John Adams, 419 ; Alfleri, 430 ; 
Erskine, 430 ; Fox, 480 ; Frederick of Prussia, 146 ; 
Mirabeau, 368 ; Napoleon, 146 ; and the author, 67. 

Ilis Perfional Appearatrce described, by Chastel- 
lux, 428 ; Dumas, 427 ; Mandrillon, 429 ; Eobin, 428 ; 
Eush, 368 ; Mrs. Wallace, 365 ; Wansey, 363. 

His Infiuence on the destiny of the U. S., 47. 

, Mrs., not present at the Inauguration, 161 ; her 

journey from Mount Vernon to New York, 161, 162, 
163, 164 ; her reception by Washington at New York, 
164 ; her levees, 1.50, 165, 215, 216, 826, 869. The demo- 
CTats object to them, 369. She is not at the Inaugu- 
ration Ball, 157 ; and never at a ball, after the Eevo- 
lution, in New York, 204. She requires duo attention 
to the etiquette of refined society, 165, note. Her 
custom of returning visits on the third day, 866. She 
is present at the delivery of Hamilton's oration on 
General Greene, 178. Iler most intimate friends, 388, 
893. Her letter to Mrs. Mercy Warren, 199, 202. She 
always spoke of Washington as "the General," 216. 
Her grandchildren, 202. A reflection upon the fact 
of Washington's having no children, 160. Mrs. W., 
her personal appearance, 159 ; and manners, 866 ; 
described by Chastellux, 160 ; and by Wansey, 869. 
Portraits of her, by Woolaston, 159; and Trumbull, 
813. Biograj/bical notice of her, 159, 160. 
Washington, Mildred, daughter of Augustine, marries 

Thomas Lee, 105. 
Watkins, John W., marries Judith, daughter of Governor 

Wm. Livingston, 97. 
Watson, John F., the antiquary, corrected, 239, 240. 
Watts, John, sen., of New York, his house escaped the 
ravages of the great fire (Sept. 21, '76), 28. 

, John, Eecorder of New York, a member of the 
Social Club, 148, note. One of the Attorneys of the 
Supreme Court, 175. Takes part in the " Constitu- 
tion Celebration," 110. Is in Mrs. Jay's Invitation 
List, 99. 

, Lady Mary, daughter of Lady Stirling, pays her 



compliments to Mrs. Washington, 164. Is at Iho 
Inauguration Ball, 155. She and Mr. Eobert W., her 
husband, are in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. 

Wayne, General Anthony, is in favor of tolerating thea- 
tres, 213. His reception of AVashington, in Georgia, 
280. 

Webster, Daniel, his favorable mention of John Bradford 
Wallace, 366, note. His eloquence referred to, 362. 

, Noah, of Connecticut, classmate of Oliver Wolcott, 

205, 206. Marries Miss Greenleaf, 104 Takes part In 
the " Convention Celebration," 110. 

Welcome, the name of the vessel in which William Penn 
comes to America, 11. 

Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 209, note *. Marquis and Mar- 
chioness, ib. See Caton. 

Wentworth, Governor, the associations of his ancient man- 
sion, 192, note, 197. 

WertmUller, the portrait of Washington which he is said 
to have painted, 411. 

West, Benjamin, of New Hampshire, Member of Con- 
gress, 1789, 166, note. 

, Benjamin, President of the Eoyal Academy, his 

opinion of the merits of Malbone, as an artist, 412. 

Wet Quakers, import of the term, 269. 

Wheate, Lady, widow of Sir Jacob Wheate, a British 
officer, 81. 

WJieatley, Phillis, of Boston, an African, her poetry com- 
mended by Abbe Gregory, and Mr. Clarkson, 405. 

Wheaton, Joseph, of Georgia, Member of Congress, in 
1789, 167, note. 

Wltite, Eev. (afterward Eight Eev. Dr.) William, Chap- 
lain to Congress, 293. Officiates at the marriage of 
Wm. Bingham and Miss Willing, 293 ; and of M. do 
Marbois and Miss Moore, 81, note. Is present at 
Washington's farewell dinner, and gives an account 
of it, 418. 
■, Eear Admiral, and Lieut. General (of the British 



army), brothers of Lady Hayes, 210. 
family, of Philadelphia, loyalists, 16. Thomas W., 

a subscriber to the Philadelphia dancing assembly, 

1748, 13. Mrs. Thomas W., and Miss Sophia W., 

among the Philadelphia " belles and dames," of 1757, 

13. 
, Alexander, of Virginia, Member of Congress in 

1789, 166, note. 
family, of New York, very conspicuous, 210. 

Henry, and the Misses, 28, 81, 210, note. 
Whitlock, Mrs., sister of Mrs. Siddons, an actress on the 

Philadelphia stage, 370, 873. 
Wliitney, Eli, inventor of the cotton gin, 403. 
Wignell, Mr., manager of the new theatre at Philadel- 
phia, 213 315. HisdiflferencewithMrs. Bingham, 874. 
Wigs, much worn by gentlemen in America, in 1786, 46. 
Willcocks, John, a subscriber for the Philadelphia dancing 

assembly, in 1748. Mrs. W., one of the Philadelphia 

"dames," in 1757, 13. 
Willett family, of New'Vork, residence of, 88, note. 
, Colonel Marinus, the success of his mission to the 

Creek Indians, 224. 
Williamson, Dr. Hugh, of North Carolina, delegate to 

the " Convention," 70. Marries Miss Apthorp, 103. 

Is in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, note. History, 

character, and personal appearance of, 71. Conduct 

towards Caracchi, the sculptor, 410. 
William and Mary College, state of, at the beginning of 

the Eevolution, 7, 
Willing, Charles, of Philadelphia, founder of the Willing 

family in America, 15. Notice of, 14. Mrs. Anne, 

his wife, 15. See notices of members of the family, 

13, 14, 15, 16, 291, 293, 298. 
, Thomas, Washington dines with, 482. Epitaph 

on, by Horace Binney, 16. 



INDEX. 



481 



M'ilmington, Delaware. See Montgomery and Vining. 

M'ilson, James, of Pennsylvania, delegate to the " Con- 
vention," 65. Chairman of the Committee that re- 
ported the Constitution, 181. His oration at the 
Philadelphia " Constitution Celebration," 107. Char- 
acter of, 75. 

Winecoop, Miss Phebe, one of the Philadelphia "belles," 
in 1757, 13. 

Wingate, Paine, of New Hampshire, TJ. S. Senator in 
1789, 166, note, 91, 95, note, 195. Describes a dinner- 
party at "Washington's house, 164. 

Winthrop family, of Boston, ancient and distinguished, 8. 

, Eobert C, his description of Sir John Temple, 94. 

Son of Sir John's beautiful daughter, 10, note *. 

family, of New York, tories, their residence in 

"Wall street, 31 +. 

Wiseheart, E., a subscriber to the Philadelphia dancing 
assembly, in 1748, 13, note. 

WisfM', Dr. Caspar, of Philadelphia, 267. Marries Miss 
Marshall, 104. 

Witherspoon, Eev. Dr., President of Nassau Hall (Col- 
lege of New Jersey), 82, 99, note. Permits students 
to serve in the Eevolutionary "War, 70. 

Wolcott fapjily, of Connecticut, notice of, 204 Henry, 
Eoger, Oliver, and the second Oliver, 204. The first 
* Oliver, the Signer of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, 204. 

— — , Oliver, the second (Secretary of the Treasury), 
his classmates, 204, 205. His letters on the cost of 
living in New Torb, 206 ; and in Philadelphia, 237, 
238. Appointed Secretary of the Treasury, 356. 
Learns from Mr. Hammond the fact of Eandolph's 
treachery, 353 ; and informs the President of it, 859. 
His account of George Hammond, 380 ; and M. Adet, 
SS5; and of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, in 1792, 
370. 

, Mrs. Oliver, is accompanied by Mrs. Susan "Wal- 
lace, to one of Mrs. "Washington's drawing-rooms, 
366. Anecdote of Mr. Tracy and Mr. Liston, in rela- 
tion to her, 400. The Eev. Dr. Timothy Dwight's 
spinion of her, il). Judge Hopkinson's account of 
Mr. and Mrs. "W., 400. 

. , Miss, younger sister of Oliver "W., is a celebrated 

beauty, 400. Marries Chauncey Goodrich, ib. 

WoJfe, Miss Sabine, marries Hugh H. Breckenridge (af- 
terwards Judge Breckenridge), 823, note. 

Women, American, style of the dress of, in 1789, 155, 
note. Eochambeau and Brissot charge them with 

61 



extravagance in dress, 323. Many British officers 
marry, 4, «o<«. Schools for, at the beginning of the 
Eevolution, 7. Characteristics of the more elevated 
class of, 825. See Society. 

Wood, "William B., the actor, his "Personal EecoUections 
of the Stage," quoted, 374, note. 

Woodmitter, the American, Talleyrand's admirable sketch 
of, 438. 

Woodrop, Miss Sally, one of the Philadelphia " belles," 
in 1757, 13. 

Woolaston, John, painter, 407. Portraits'of Mrs. Custis 
and Mrs. Smith by, 159. Notice of, 159, note; by 
Dunlap, Hobbes, "Walpole, and G. "W. P. Custis, ib. 
Yerses to, by Francis Hopkinson, 159, note. Portrait 
by (in the British Museum), of Thomas Brittan, ib. 

Worcester, the bishop of, who preferred bacon to Shake- 
speare, 213. 

Wright, Joseph, portrait of "Washington by, 408. 

, family, of New York, residence of, 33, note. 

Wynkoop, Henry, of Pennsylvania, Member of Congress, 
in 17S9, 166, note. Eeferred to in a conversation on 
the subject of the official title of the Chief Magistrate, 
153, 154. 

Wynne, family, of Philadelphia, of the elder part of the 
provincial aristocracy, 11. 

Wythe, George, Chancellor of Virginia, 282, 831. Delegate 
to the " Convention," 67. Signer of the Declaration 
of Independence, 68. Eemarkable character of his 
mother, 67. History, character, and personal appear- 
ance of; 67, 68, 69. 

T. 

Tale College, New Haven, state of, at the beginning of 
the Eevolution, 7. Eev. Dr. Stiles, President of, de- 
livers a Latin oration on the character of Dr. Frank- 
lin, 222. 

Tates, Judge, in Mrs. Jay's Invitation List, 99, Twie. 

Tellow fever, in Philadelphia, in 1798, 370. Account of 
It by Oliver Wolcott, 870; and by Brockden Brown, 
370, note. 

Torktown, "Washington goes to, attended by Eocham- 
beau, 6. 

Yrvjo, Don Carlos, Marquis d', Spanish Minister, suc- 
ceeds Don F. Jaundennes, 883. His visit (1796) to 
"Washington, at Mount Yernon, 388. "Washington's 
letter to Pickering on the occasion, 888. Marries 
Sally McKean, 137, 889. 



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